Norbert is a young man who goes into his father’s study to claim his monthly allowance and, stubbornly, asks for more by insisting on a debt owed to a schoolmate. His father grants a bit of money, but the request spirals as Norbert presses for extra help. A failed pawn attempt on his own watch leads him to a friend who instead hands over a forged 500-franc note. The episode sets off a chain of deceit.
The forged bill is used to buy a picture frame at a local photo shop, and the shop’s co-manager scolds her partner for being too gullible. She counters by recalling that two other forged notes had already been accepted the previous week. The partner decides to pass off all three forged notes at the next opportunity, and those bills are eventually used to pay Yvon for delivering heating oil.
Yvon tries to settle a restaurant tab with the counterfeit money, but the waiter immediately recognizes the bills. He is arrested, and the photo shop workers lie at his trial to protect their own reputations. Although Yvon narrowly avoids jail time, he loses his job, and the consequences ripple through the people connected to the shop and the street.
A photo shop owner recognizes Norbert on the street with a group of school friends and informs the authorities. When a Chaplain questions the students about the counterfeit bills, Norbert slips out of the classroom. At home, his mother urges him to deny everything, and she goes to the photo shop, offering a bribe in an attempt to quiet the matter.
In a darker turn, Lucien, the photo shop assistant who helped the shop’s owners commit perjury at the trial, is revealed to be skimming profits by marking up prices when the owners are away. His scheme is exposed, he is fired, but he keeps a copy of the shop keys. He and two friends steal from the shop’s safe and then move into a more dangerous crime: they begin an ATM card skimming operation.
Desperate for cash, Yvon becomes involved as the getaway driver for a bank robbery. The plan is thwarted by the police, and Yvon is arrested, tried, and sentenced to three years in prison. While serving his sentence, he learns that his daughter has died and that his wife intends to start a new life without him. He also makes a failed suicide attempt.
Meanwhile, Lucien and his accomplices are finally arrested, and he is sent to the same prison as Yvon. He proposes a prison break and tries to draw Yvon into the plan, but Yvon refuses. The two men grow to blame each other for the hardships they have endured, and Lucien’s escape attempt stirs tension about what lies ahead.
After leaving prison, Yvon commits a brutal spree: he murders and robs a pair of hotel keepers. A kindly woman takes him in despite her father’s objections, a fragile period of relative normalcy passes, and then, one night, Yvon kills the couple and others in their house with an axe. He then travels to a café, confesses his crimes to a police officer, and is arrested, bringing the bleak, inexorable arc of his life to a close.
