Marie-Louise (Anne Girardot) is a woman whose love for her ex-husband will not die. The lawyer Alexandre (Jean Rochefort) left her, because she attended a few leftist marches and demonstrations. While her daughter Laura (Claude Jade) falls in love with Marc (Bernard Fresson), Marie-Louise keeps hoping that Alexandre will come back to her. Laura helps her to fight for love and Marie-Louise is so attached to this idea that when her son (Bernard Le Coq) finally convinces her that he will never return, the realization has dire consequences.
Jean Rochefort played his first major role. In this film he played with 41 years a family father of adult children (the young Claude Jade was already 23 and Bernard Fresson who has played Jade's fiancé one year younger than Rochefort). To be older, he had a moustache, since this film his trademark, which he had removed only once (1996 in "Ridicule").
