Amid the low-rent neighborhoods of Montreal, the true nature of a career criminal is slowly unveiled. BenoÎt is a car thief perpetually running from the police, his family, his ex-lovers, and a 14-year-old hood who badly needs a father figure. But after he falls for the lovely Sylvie while trying to boost her car, can BenoÎt commit to turning his life around?
In this tragicomedy, Toni is the director of a staged rendition of Othello in Montreal. It is a pet project of his, financed by his loving mafia uncle. Unbeknownst to him, the audiences are also rounded up (and paid) by the same uncle. Some of them have seen every performance of this tragic play, and are understandably bored, so when the backstage romantic shenanigans of the actors result in absurd situations onstage, the audience is delighted. There are a huge number of romantic situations going on in this film at the same time. One of them involves Gaston a somewhat world-weary jazz musician, and Florence, a glamorous middle-aged woman who has been pining for him for years. Another involves to members of the musician's jazz trio. Yet another involves the play's Desdemona, Soledad, the girlfriend of the man playing Othello, who can't keep his hands off his (female) dresser.
A Montreal man imagines a mermaid in place of the writer whose picture appears on a novel.