Louis Aubinar [Bob Hoskins] is a humble, middle‑aged photographer who specializes in religious pictures, living in a cramped Paris apartment with his psychotic sister, Elizabeth, whose cooking is famously terrible—scarcely a meal goes by without some bizarre disaster, from ruined sauces to grinding an entire sailfish into paste. In a city that prizes sacred imagery, Louis carries a quiet optimism even as he faces financial strain and a precarious job situation. His employer, Norbert [Michel Blanc], is a prestigious curator of religious articles who has tasked Louis with creating portraits of the Saints. When Norbert abruptly shifts plans—from John the Baptist to Jesus—the pressure on Louis to find a suitable Jesus‑model becomes a matter of job security for him, and for Zalman, Louis’s friend, who is already anxious about his own stalled career in film‑dubbing due to a flu that could ruin another opportunity. Zalman asks Louis to cover his part until he recovers, setting off a chain of events that will pull Louis deeper into a messy, comic‑tragic encounter with love, art, and identity.
In a twist of fate, Louis steps into Zalman’s current gig—voice work dubbing pornographic films—and finds himself seated next to Sybil [Natasha Richardson], a woman with a past both tender and tumultuous. The moment is chaotic and oddly electric; Louis’s embarrassment morphs into a startling display that ends with a loud, unusual reaction, which catches Sybil off guard and somehow forges a peculiar connection between them. Louis introduces himself as Zalman to cover the absence, and what begins as a desperate impersonation blossoms into something unexpectedly intimate as Sybil shares the backstory of a former relationship with a passionate, deluded pianist who worked at the same restaurant where she met him.
That pianist—who becomes a recurring figure in Sybil’s tale—developed a volatile bond with a violinist who is attacked by jealousy and ends up in prison for three years, only to be released soon after. The restaurant’s atmosphere grows more vibrant as the pianist’s music elevates the mood, while the pianist’s impulsive actions fuel a mounting tension surrounding his identity and his art. Moved by Sybil’s memories, Louis lends her money to buy a suit for the pianist and promises to stand with her at the prison gates when his release finally arrives. A complication arises when Sybil’s sick grandfather complicates their plans, causing them to miss the rendezvous at the prison and prompting Louis to chase the wrong person instead. The suit Louis helped purchase reappears in a shop window, deepening the mystery of who is who.
In a dramatic turn of chance, the pianist discovers Norbert’s card and arrives at Norbert’s door in the rain, seeking Louis’s help to become the new Jesus for Norbert’s project. Louis realizes that the pianist could be the perfect Jesus model, and with Norbert’s blessing the two men forge a compelling collaboration that yields a lucrative contract. The photographer and his new model capture a series of powerful images, portraying the pianist under posters that name him variously, including the title of Jesus, while the public begins to identify him as a miraculous figure. As the pianist’s role expands, he is asked to perform a healing act for a blind boy; during a moment of supposed concentration, a golf ball accidentally strikes the boy, restoring his sight in a surprising, almost mythic turn.
This newfound fame unsettles the pianist, who begins doubting his own identity as he opens up to Louis about the feelings he suspects Louis harbors for Sybil—feelings that echo the pianist’s own past romance. Meanwhile, Sybil returns the borrowed suit and repays Zalman, who is too ill to answer the door. Believing Louis to be Zalman, she goes to Norbert’s studio where the pianist has recently been fired. When the pianist sees Sybil with Norbert, a violent confrontation erupts, and Louis finds himself unprepared for the truth of the pianist’s previous involvement with Sybil.
The tragedy that follows is as profound as it is surreal. The pianist, convinced of his divine role, attempts to walk on water and ends up drowning in a river. Louis, still caught in the muddle of misidentifications and unspoken feelings, carries the pianist’s ashes in an urn as Sybil finally tracks him down. The story closes on a note of unresolved longing and renewed closeness: the two protagonists inch toward one another again, and as Sybil surveys Louis, she mistakes him for Zalman once more, noticing the watch she once gave him gleaming on his wrist. The watch becomes a quiet symbol of a past gift and a new, shared future, hinting at reconciliation even as memory and misunderstanding linger.
