Ange, the mayor of a distant mountain village in Corsica becoming depopulated has launched a drama workshop supposed to give new life to the region. To this end he is to sign a contract with a cabinet minister for whom the villagers are rehearsing a play. It is the very day of the coming of the minister that Ange chooses to pass away, which infuriates his cantankerous wife Lellè. The contract must be signed anyway but how to go about it, mainly with such a family as Ange's: Rinatu, the nationalist, traditionalist son; Sauveur, the former local policeman turned politician; Marcia, Rinatu's daughter, determined to perform the play at any cost; Ange's two wives, the official one: the bad-tempered Lellè, and the unofficial one, the Indian domestic worker of Indian origin? To say nothing of Pantaleone, the deputy mayor, whose wife has been one of Ange's (numerous) mistresses.
Rémi Francois, también conocido como Jack Palmer, un detective privado parisino que cree que es tan irresistible a las mujeres como experto en su trabajo, finalmente acepta el trabajo que le da un notario de provincias: encontrar a Ange Leoni, una chica de Córcega que ha heredado una pequeña suma de dinero, pero se ha desvanecido en el aire. Esto parece una minucia para Jack Palmer, acostumbrado a misiones infinitamente más delicadas. Pero tan pronto como llega a la llamada “Isla de la Belleza” (Córcega), la minucia se convierte en una maldición de pesadilla. Vigilado por desconocidos a través de binoculares mientras investiga el caso, Palmer es frustrado por las pocas ganas de hablar de los lugareños, infinitas rondas de bebida en la taberna local, separatistas que lo secuestran, policías que lo esposan por error, un coche que explota en mil pedazos, y la misteriosa Ange Leoni, que concierta citas secretas con él pero nunca aparece.
Toussaint and Madeleine have loved each other from the cradle. They are now sixty. They have reached retirement age and have decided to return to Corsica. Toussaint has spent thirty years underground in the maintenance workshops of the Paris metro system. he is happy, but Madeleine misses Paris with its excitement and, above all, their son, who is a doctor in one of the French capital's major hospitals. Madeleine has such love for her son that Toussaint teases her by saying she should ask the Pope for dispensation in order to marry him. Toussaint and Madeleine return to Balba at the beginning of the winter when the days are short, the village bar is closed and the men too scarce for even a game of cards. The silence is occasionally broken by the village idiot, Napolean, as he ambles about shouting the coming death of Corsica while on patrol of the locked-up houses he's been set to guard...
