A foundling, raised in the circus, Sam Lion becomes a businessman after a trapeze accident. However, when he reaches fifty and becomes tired of his responsibilities and of his son Jean-Philippe, he decides to disappear at sea. However, he runs into Albert Duvivier, one of his former employees. He comes to realise that he has ignored the important things in his life.

Marie (and her three fathers) are taking A-levels. Marie passes. She spends the summer in the country with her mother, Sylvia, who has returned from America with her Californian husband who has two sons. Marie falls in and out of love for the first time in front of her alarmed fathers, who see Marie's innocence slipping away at frightening speed, and their relationships with the two women become even more complicated.