A poor but ambitious young man arrives in Paris and settles down in the boarding house run by Madame Vauquer. He soon gets to know the guests: Victorine Taillefer, a young lady her rich father refuses to recognize; Horace Bianchon, a medical student; Monsieur Vautrin, a mysterious and disconcerting man; Goriot, a rich merchant who spent all his fortune for his daughters, Delphine and Anastasie, to make a rich marriage. Eugène becomes friends with Goriot but while the former, thanks to his cousin Madame de Beauséant, is introduced in high society, Goriot, both exploited and scoffed at by his daughters, continues his descent into hell.

In this very black comedy about ill-suited neighbors united by marriage, Niki is a former colonel in the Romanian army whose daughter is married to the son of Flo, an aging Bohemian who is full of schemes for the “new” Romania. As the young couple prepares to emigrate to the U.S., Niki is obliged to interact with Flo, whom he finds totally unbearable.

Christina's ghost haunts the mansion where she was born.

In August 1944 Romania, a group of telephone operators are caught in the events in a new center placed in a forest to evade bombardment.