This is a funny, deeply affecting and often painfully truthful movie about families, parenthood, growing up, growing old and dying, devoid of sentimentality, acquiescence in Larkinesque cynicism concerning the horrors of family life, or any Gallic equivalent of Hollywood's "I love you, Dad", "I love you too, son". It covers five days between 1988 and 2000, each one seen from the point of view of a member of the Duval family – the taxi driver Robert, his pretty wife Marie-Jeanne, and their children, Albert, Raphaël and Fleur.
In 1988, Albert, a medical student, leaves the nest to live in the attic of his overbearing widowed grandfather. On her 16th birthday, Friday 3 December 1993, Fleur loses her virginity and rows with her parents. Three years later in 1996, Raphaël, a would-be musician, comes to terms with his grandfather and attends his brother's wedding. In 1998, Marie-Jeanne feels rejected and teeters on the brink of adultery. In 2000, Robert takes stock of his career and performance as husband and father.
The film is both simple and emotionally dense, the performances are beyond reproach and almost everyone will find something that relates closely to their experiences. The comedy is beautifully handled, notably in a scene in which the taxi driver goes to a crucial consultation with a young specialist. Noting the name Robert Duval, the doctor goes into a loving, word-perfect recreation of the scene in Apocalypse Now where the Hollywood actor of the same name (but with two Ls) plays the napalm-sniffing Colonel Kilgore.