My Afternoons with Margueritte

Germain (Gérard Depardieu), a semiliterate man in his fifties, lives in a trailer on his mother’s lawn in the French village where he was born. Diminished by his friends’ jibes and his mother’s cruelty, he finds solace in gardening, woodcarving, and feeding pigeons. In the park, he meets Margueritte (Gisèle Casadesus), an elderly woman whose warmth, wit, and love of literature inspire a lasting friendship. As she reads him great French novels and shares her wisdom, Germain gains a new perspective and the confidence to change his life.