Young and newly divorced, Mathilde wants to start life over. She moves to Malesaygues, a small village in the south of France where she finds a job, gets to know her neighbors, and makes friends with a man called Fred. He helps her clean her garage and, in exchange, asks her to teach him to read and write. They become fast friends, and more. But a rumor concerning Fred's past starts to spread through the village. Mathilde finds out that Fred has been interned in a psychiatric institute. Is there a link with the picture of the young girl he always carries in his wallet? Malesaygues at first represented freedom to Mathilde, and self-reinvention, but in time, it also comes to mean mystery, conspiracy, rumor and tragedy.