The love story of the famous ballet dancer Mathilde Kschessinska and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

Two friends, one a musician the other constantly depressed wander around Greece and France till they get to Paris without a penny to their name. Here they spend nights in the underground, and squat in houses with the African immigrants. One day they both fall in love with Mathilde a blond dancer and follow her to New York.

In order to save the man she loves from jail, Mathilde takes his place by helping his break-out. While she exclusively relies on him to survive in this prison setting, Mathilde has not heard from him since her imprisonment. Isolated, with her son as her only support, she is now identified by the inmate number 383205-B. Will Mathilde become a convict like any other one?

Markus, a deployed military man, has to go home to his teenage daughter, Mathilde, when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. It seems to be plain bad luck – but it turns out that it might have been a carefully orchestrated assassination, which his wife ended up being a random casualty of.

Frank, a man of action who worked his way up all by himself, dedicates his life to work. No matter the place or the circumstances, be it day or night, he’s on the phone, handling the cargo ships he charters for major companies. But when he has to deal with a crisis situation, Frank makes a brutal decision and gets fired. Profoundly shaken, betrayed by a system to which he gave his all, he has to progressively question himself to save the one connection that still matters to him: the bond he’s managed to maintain with his youngest daughter, Mathilde.

In 1919, Mathilde was 19 years old. Two years earlier, her fiancé Manech left for the front at the Somme. Like millions of others he was “killed on the field of battle.” It’s written in black and white on the official notice. But Mathilde refuses to believe it. If Manech had died, she would know. She hangs on to her intuition as tightly as she would onto the last thread of hope linking her to her lover. A former sergeant tells her in vain that Manech died in the no man’s land of a trench named Bingo Crepescule, in the company of four other men condemned to die for self-inflicted wounds. Her path ahead is full of obstacles but Mathilde is not frightened. Anything is possible to someone who is willing to challenge fate…

Mathias Gold (Kevin Kline) is a down-on-his-luck New Yorker who inherits a Parisian apartment from his estranged father. But when he arrives in France to sell the vast domicile, he’s shocked to discover a live-in tenant who is not prepared to budge. His apartment is a viager – an ancient French real estate system with complex rules pertaining to its resale – and the feisty Englishwoman Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith), who has lived in the apartment with her daughter Chloé (Kristin Scott Thomas) for many years, can by contract collect monthly payments from Mathias until her death.

Poland, 1945. Mathilde, a young French Red Cross doctor, is on a mission to help the war survivors. When a nun seeks for her help, she is brought to a convent where several pregnant sisters are hiding, unable to reconcile their faith with their pregnancy. Mathilde becomes their only hope.

Antoine is a musician. The forties, he suddenly decides to end his career. After a few days of wandering, he gets a job as a janitor. Mathilde lives in the old building in the east of Paris where he takes office. This is a young retiree, generous and involved, who divides his time between his associational activities and the life of the condominium. One night, she discovers a disturbing crack on the wall of his living room. Gradually, his anxiety grew to turn into panic and if the building collapsed … Slowly, Antoine befriends the woman he feared to see slip into madness. Between slips and concerns, both form an awkward tandem, humorous and solidarity which will, perhaps, through this bad patch.