Caroline (Fanny Ardant) has recently given up her practice as a dentist after a dispute with a client. Now in her early 60s, she has a hard time deciding what to do with all her free time. In addition, she is grieving the death of her best friend from breast cancer. Her two daughters, both married with children, give her a trial membership at Bright Days Ahead, a local senior center offering a smorgasbord of classes and activities. After being humiliated in an acting improvisation class, Caroline decides to take a computer class. She and her husband Philippe (Patrick Chesnais) are having trouble getting on the Internet with their home computer.
When the handsome forty-something computer instructor, Julien (Laurent Lafitte), finds out that she is a dentist, he has her do some work on his teeth. At lunch he flirts with her, and she is emotionally touched by all his attention. Caroline begins a passionate affair with Julien, despite his reputation as a ladies' man. For her, the affair is an adventure filled with ample pleasures. For him, it becomes an intimate relationship that turns out to be something more than just another fling.
Marion Vernoux directs this dramedy which offers a few new twists on the older woman and younger man sexual affair. It is based on co-screenwriter Fanny Chesnel's novel about adultery and its complications. Fanny Ardant was a favorite actress of French filmmaker Francois Truffaut and starred in Confidentially Yours and The Woman Next Door. Her performance along with that of Patrick Chesnais (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) as her patient, tolerant, and understanding husband help make this French film something special.
