Julie Bataille is fed up with student jobs. At 23, with a 5-years university degree, she wants to work for real. She meets Ben by chance at a job interview. He's a guy who chose to live by the day, getting by with whatever crosses his path and small-time trafficking. Ben asks her to come and spend the summer with him in the South. Julie declines. Then one day, on an impulse, she leaves everything behind and joins him.

Juliette was simply not sure about coming to live in this residential suburb of the greater Paris metropolitan area. All the women here are in their forties, have children to raise, houses to keep and husbands who return home late at night.Today she has an appointment in Paris that is important for her career, but she also has to run errands and pick up the kids from school. During the course of her day, monopolized by petty, everyday tasks, Juliette can feel the noose of domestic obligations and household chores slowly tightening around her neck.

Emmanuelle lives in the suburbs near a shopping mall. Since her father's death, she feels increasingly out of sync with the world around her. Her mother is distracted, high school bores her. She has just turned 17 and, this particular year, her life will take an entirely different turn.

Italian jeweller Matteo Belmonte and his wife Christine are robbed for the third time in the space of a few months. With Christine in danger, Matteo fires two shots. The robber Rufin dies at the feet of Romy, the couple's daughter. Self-defense or not, Matteo has to learn how to survive after killing a man in front of his traumatised family.