Paris, France, December 1897. The young playwright Edmond Rostand feels like a failure. Inspiration has abandoned him. Married and father of two children, desperate and penniless, he persuades the great actor Constant Coquelin to perform the main role in his new play. But there is a problem: Coquelin wants to premiere it at Christmas and Edmond has not written a single word.
When Ilan Halimi is kidnapped for ransom because Jewish and supposedly rich, his family and the police start a race against time to save him from the tortures of the "gang of barbarians".