La course à la vertu

Angèle, a thirty-something from Ivory Coast, always cope thanks to the gift of gab and audacity. To escape from a bunch of dangerous criminals, she becomes a nanny in the uptown Paris, hired by Hélène, the single mom of eight years old Arthur. Discovering the work conditions of her colleagues, she decides to stand up for their rights, thanks to a young lawyer who will quickly fall for her.

Long married 50-somethings Brigitte and Xavier are prize cattle breeders in regional France. Life is good, but the departure of their children from home has thrown Brigitte’s world into flux, as she finds herself locked into routine. She keeps hoping for something else, something more. A party held by students on the adjoining property accelerates this latent crisis and Brigitte impulsively sets off for Paris under the guise of a doctor’s appointment. The city immediately invigorates her, and when she meets a charming Danish gentleman, she impulsively allows herself to be flattered by his attentions…

Paris, in the early 1960s. Jean-Louis Joubert is a serious but uptight stockbroker, married to Suzanne, a starchy class-conscious woman and father of two arrogant teenage boys, currently in a boarding school. The affluent man lives a steady yet boring life. At least until, due to fortuitous circumstances, Maria, the charming new maid at the service of Jean-Louis' family, makes him discover the servants' quarter on the sixth floor of the luxury building he owns and lives in. There live a crowd of lively Spanish maids who will help Jean-Louis to open to a new civilization and a new approach of life. In their company - and more precisely in the company of beautiful Maria - Jean-Louis will gradually become another man, a better man.

The story takes place in the racecourses around Paris. A so-called major sells his tips to naive characters.

An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.