It’s summer, on the beach of this little town in Brittany, a man is building a sand castle. A few people watch him. We will be told the story of three of them: a boy, Jumbo, aged 9; François and his sister Zaza. All of them had to deal with the death of somebody they cherished.
First performed in 1732, Marivaux's play on the theme of cross-dressing, depicts the stratagems of the young princess Léonide in love with Agis, the legitimate heir to the throne of Sparta. To meet the prince, watched over by the philosopher Hermocrates and his sister, Léonide disguises herself as a man and seduces the whole household.
Alceste hates all of humanity, denounces its hypocrisy, cowardice and compromise. But he nevertheless loves Célimène, flirtatious and slanderous. The virtuous thus launches into battles lost in advance which force him to flee.
Two men, fortyish, worn out by their wives, abandon everything to go and live in the back of beyond. There they meet a truculent priest, a boozer, Émile who recalls them to life's simple pleasures. Calm is what they want. But soon their example inspires thousands of disorientated males, fleeing the feminist 1970s. Soon, too, there arrives a squadron of nymphomaniac Amazons.
Nicolas Mallet, an inconspicuous and shy bank employee, one day successfully invites Marie-Paul, a young woman he hadn’t known before, in the streets of Paris to a café and sleeps with her the next day. When he tells his surprised friend Claude about the incident, the disillusioned and handicapped writer starts to guide him, leading Nicolas on a dazzling social ascent.
A patient observation on the adventures a group of three young girls spending their three-week summer vacation at a small village, a quotidian that includes cooking, excursions, playing cards and going out with guys, enjoying the simple pleasures life has to offer.