Vincent, a young penniless painter, is hired by an idle bourgeois family to paint a picture of the villa where they stay in summer in Brittany. They offer to put him up overnight and Vincent gets to observe the habits of his employers which he finds increasingly bizarre. He's the priviledged witness of their fights and their daily hysteria. He falls in love with Laura, the young mistress of the house whose husband is always away and who escapes from reality by seeking refuge in the world of childhood. Vincent ends up wondering about the true reasons for his presence within this strange family...