To see more clearly in herself, one evening of depression, Brigitte remembers her childhood: the Fifties come back at a gallop. She sees herself at seven years old in the apartment of Courbevoie where her mother holds a grocery store and where her father, Emile, "pulls his laziness". It must be said that life is not rosy: parents, three daughters and a dog in the same room. Brigitte soon leaves the suburbs for the countryside where her grandfather teaches her about life. Meanwhile, her parents move to Paris; Emile has become a salesman and his wife has given up the grocery store. Returning to the capital, Brigitte witnesses the sentimental problems of her sister Pierrette, and Florence's beginnings in the career of advertising films. Ten years later, Brigitte meets François, whom she rejects after he gives birth to a child. Florence marries a penniless son from a good family; even her mother runs away in love with a violinist, while Emile gnaws at his misogynistic and vulgar cousin Gabriel.