Sometimes the best stories are right outside our front door. A struggling Parisian writer sets himself a challenge: go out into the street and turn the first person he sees into the main character of his next novel. Secretly hoping to meet the beautiful woman he occasionally spots smoking nearby, he instead sets eyes on octogenarian Madeleine, a seemingly mundane woman coming home from the supermarket. Initially fearing his project is doomed, he soon finds that Madeleine's calm exterior belies an eventful past and a troubled family. Scenting a story, he begins investigating Madeleine's relatives, the Martins--and becomes more embroiled in their lives than he ever could have imagined...