Françoise Lépine

Nénette (Josiane Balasko) is a little girl aged 60. A problem at birth made her different. Nénette has a mental age of eight and has always lived with her mother, who raised her alone. Nénette has a job as a cleaner in the village school and her best friend is a tortoise. When her mother dies, everything changes and Nénette has to go into a retirement home. However the home doesn’t allow pets, so Nénette heads off with her suitcase and her tortoise to look for her father. All she has is a yellowing photograph, a letter and an address. When Nénette finally arrives at the address, she discovers a pharmacy, and not her father, but her father’s son, Paul (Michel Blanc), an uptight pharmacist who is thrown into a panic by the arrival of his half-sister.

France, late 18th Century. The State and the Church have forbidden the publication of Diderot's encyclopaedia. As he struggles with the "Morality" chapter of the illicit book, Diderot juggles his mistresses and his daughter's libertarian tendencies.