4 and a half is the apartment occupied on the Plateau Mont-Royal in Montreal by a young couple. It is a chronicle of the daily life of the urban reality of 25-30 year olds: love, friendship, humor and tenderness.

In the 1950s, young boys were placed in orphanages and endure harsh and austere living conditions. As a united group, they supported each other and survived despite bullying, hardship and little hope for better days. While these children were doing their best to survive, they had no way to suspect the secret dealings between the clergy, the medical profession and the government that will inevitably seal their fates. The institution faced with a precarious financial situation, the solution is to transform the orphanage into a psychiatric institute in order to obtain additional subsidies. To demonstrate the need for this change in status, the orphans are labeled as insane by the very people who took them in to help them. While their future as orphans was already precarious, they become prisoners of an asylum system from which they have little hope of being able to free themselves even as they grow older.

Marie, incapable of choosing between three marriage proposals, decides to give up. Circumstances mean that the three men meet. Far from being hostile, Stéphane, Fabrice and Paul console each other....