In an undefined future in France, unemployment has reached 35%. The government feels that consumption is endangered and, to give the unemployed purchasing power again, it creates an empty job policy: high wage earners must employ a jobless person. In this way Monsieur Rémiot, an executive, encounters thirty-year-old unemployed Elise. This forced coexistence causes him to question his own usefulness and undermines the foundations of the main reference points of his life.