François is the carefree son of an influential lawyer who has no qualifications and no steady job. In a bid to blend with wealthy, superficial friends, he borrows money he cannot repay. In a reckless scramble for cash, he rummages through his father's desk, steals cash, and even burns one of his father's legal documents. Instead of calling the police, his father has him committed to a remote psychiatric hospital in the countryside, a decision that sets the stage for a tense, morally charged odyssey.
Inside, François soon discovers that many of the inmates are not truly deranged, even as Dr. Varmont, the senior doctor of the ward, argues that the mentally ill should be kept away from ordinary society. The hospital becomes a microcosm where reality and control clash, and where power dynamics shape the fate of those who are deemed “incurably” ill.
In the ward, François forms uneasy bonds with Lenoir, a criminal hiding from gangland vengeance, and with Heurtevent, a gentle epileptic whose humanity stands in quiet contrast to the harsh regime around him. To François’s delight, a visitor named Stéphanie—a girl he met on his last night of freedom—arrives at the hospital. She recognizes that he is not insane and urges him to regain control of his life, offering a glimmer of hope amid the confines of the institution.
Visiting hours end, and François attempts a clandestine exit with others leaving the ward, only to be halted by a warden. The incident intensifies when, under the influence of pentobarbital, François confesses to Dr. Varmont that he blames his father for his mother’s suicide when he was a boy, a moment that exposes raw guilt and prompts deeper questions about responsibility and perception.
From Heurtevent, François learns about the ward overseen by Dr. Emery, whose methods are more progressive but, crucially, lack the capacity to accept new patients. The possibility of a different path flickers into view, but it is tempered by the cold reality of the hospital’s limitations. After signalling a desire for reconciliation, François is visited by his father, yet the encounter is a failure and release remains distant.
With Heurtevent, François attempts another escape, a plan that ends in tragedy: Heurtevent collapses in an epileptic seizure while François is wounded by a local with a gun, and Heurtevent ultimately takes his own life. The momentum of desperation pushes François toward another escape during Heurtevent’s funeral, with the hospital cemetery lying just beyond the walls.
Lenoir provides a clue to a possible future in Paris, offering an address where he might find work and shelter. François makes a successful break and discovers the address is an illegal gambling den. Unsure if this is a path he wants to take, he nevertheless goes unannounced to Stéphanie’s room, where she lets him stay for the night. The next morning, two plainclothes men arrive, searching for François, but Stéphanie pretends not to know where he is. He prepares to flee once more, refuses Stéphanie’s offer to accompany him, and slips away. In the stairwell, he is spotted by the waiting officers and is hurried back to the asylum, ending this chapter in a loop of confinement, pursuit, and unresolved longing.
