Saved from drowning in Paris's River Seine, a sixty-something misanthrope finds himself stuck in a hospital bed for six weeks while he recovers, but if he was hoping for a peaceful convalescence he's out of luck. As he looks back on his life, the good and the bad, he makes some unexpected new acquaintances, and just when he thought life had no more surprises in store for him, he finds out he was wrong.... As an unlikely cast of characters come to visit at his bedside, he finds it harder and harder to maintain his splendid, miserable isolation.