Etienne, a serious and impressionable shaggy-haired young cinephile, leaves behind his steady girlfriend in Lyon to study film in Paris. Settling into a dingy flat with a rotating cast of roommates, he immerses himself in a bohemian world of artists, intellectuals, and fellow film geeks who excitedly share their passion for Bresson, Ford, and obscure Russian directors. It's a seemingly idyllic life of the mind, until more complicated matters of the flesh, as well as jealous creativity, intrude.