Yann leads a seemingly happy life with his two children and a beautiful, loving, dynamic woman Julianne. Yet he is unhappy. For ten years, he has dreamed of writing a great novel that wins the Prix Goncourt, but all he gets on paper is the adventures of the Hippopoum TV figure and he flies away in the alcohol. One day Julianne is the Norwegian bushes of masculine pleasure and she pulls out with the director of a TV station. A disaster for Yann, because she leaves their children behind him and he is not able to take care of them.

Marianne Winckler relocates to the port city of Caen in order to pass herself off as a member of a large community of itinerant workers desperate to make ends meet. She gains employment as a cleaner on a ferry travelling between Ouistreham and Portsmouth, recording the drudgery of the work she and her colleagues are required to do.