Sami [Samy Seghir] is a fourteen-year-old beur living in Chalon-sur-Saône, a modest city tucked in the Burgundy region. When his widowed mother Farida Khelfa takes a job aboard a boat, she makes the difficult choice to send Sami to live with his aunt Djamila, who is married to Frenchman Stanislas de Chazelle Denis Podalydès. They move to the affluent suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where Stanislas’ two children from a previous marriage, Charles and Caroline, are already settled. At first, Charles resents Sami’s arrival, but the two boys gradually become friends as Sami enrolls in classes at the private Saint-Exupéry school.
Inside Saint-Exupéry, Sami faces ridicule from many classmates, especially Guilain Lambert [Mathieu Spinosi], who targets him to maintain control and status. Yet Sami harbors a gentler, more sensitive side that attracts Marie [Joséphine Japy], a blonde violinist, and their bond deepens when a moving piece in music class stirs him to tears, reminding him of friends back in Chalon. Marie’s presence helps Sami navigate the social frictions, though Guilain’s vote-chasing schemes and his own ambitions complicate matters; he even enlists Malik to mug Sami and Charles, hoping to derail Sami’s growing standing at school. They manage to escape Malik and his crew, but Sami ends up with a black eye, and when Marie sees it, she becomes angry and questions Sami’s behavior.
To boost Charles’ chances in the class delegate elections, Sami and Charles throw a party at the house. Marie attends and tries to mend fences, but Malik and his gang crash the celebration, trashing the home. Sami’s friends from Chalon—Pierre Louis Bellet and Shaïko Dieng—arrive to help, and the group drives Malik and his thugs away. In the aftermath, Malik seeks payback by claiming Sami orchestrated the whole incident, an accusation that complicates matters when Guilain winds up in the hospital with injuries. At the hospital, Djamila and Stanislas confront Sami, and they leave believing Sami is at fault, a blow that strains Sami’s ties to his aunt.
Marie intervenes, seeking to protect Sami and to balance the truth. She finds Malik and offers money to tell the headmistress Mme Bachelot that Sami was responsible for Guilain’s beating; Malik refuses the cash, insisting he had already told the headmistress the truth. The headmistress then informs Djamila, who forgives Sami, allowing him to stay in Neuilly and keep the fragile peace he’s built. Charles ultimately secures the class election with a well-crafted letter, traveling back to confront Sami and his friends in Chalon, urging them to remember his name and consider voting for him in the future. Meanwhile, Sami remains in Neuilly and begins a quiet, hopeful romance with Marie, hoping to find a balance between loyalty to his roots and the life he’s started to build in a new city.
