A large family crams into a three-room flat in a drab suburb.Twelve people ,soon joined,out of the blue, by the prodigal son, released from jail.To make matters worse,the TV set , then the sofa and finally the refrigerator vanish into thin air.Neverthelesss, life goes on ,with mom's nervous breakdowns , dad's absences ;The daughter, Julie, an abandoned social worker,is always sobbing ; her sister , rehearsing the "Hebrew slaves chorus" is eagerly waiting for her drafted fiancee.

Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years (724 episodes) from January 10, 1975, to June 22, 1990, and was one of the most watched shows on French television (around 6 million regular viewers). It was broadcast on Friday nights on the channel France 2 (which was called "Antenne 2" from 1975 to 1992). The hourlong show was devoted to books, authors and literature. The format varied between one-on-one interviews with a single author and open discussions between four or five authors.