Nicolas Mallet, an inconspicuous and shy bank employee, one day successfully invites Marie-Paul, a young woman he hadn’t known before, in the streets of Paris to a café and sleeps with her the next day. When he tells his surprised friend Claude about the incident, the disillusioned and handicapped writer starts to guide him, leading Nicolas on a dazzling social ascent.

Genial, bumbling Monsieur Hulot loves his top-floor apartment in a grimy corner of the city, and cannot fathom why his sister's family has moved to the suburbs. Their house is an ultra-modern nightmare, which Hulot only visits for the sake of stealing away his rambunctious young nephew. Hulot's sister, however, wants to win him over to her new way of life, and conspires to set him up with a wife and job.