As the paramedics pry her hand apart from her dead lover's grip a woman's life flashes before her eyes. Racing to the hospital the stunning skies and rooftops of Montreal from the back of the ambulance are inter-cut with the most exquisitely cinematic memories.

When considering taking a few weeks off, Dr. Rainville places an ad to find a replacement who would agree to take his place in Normétal, in Abitibi. Jeanne Dion from Montreal accepts the offer and goes to the site, where it comes into contact with old customers and the lonely doctor. The problems of the inhabitants of the small community are varied, but Jeanne adapts well to her new environment. When Dr. Rainville was struck by a heart attack, he must still be replaced some time. She could even take his place permanently...

For more than 25 years, Marc Côté, street chaplain and parish priest, has lived with the poor and the homeless. Today, Marc is a worn-out man. Exhausted from running his church, which serves as a shelter, and overwhelmed by the bills they can no longer pay, Marc must face the facts: he will have to shut down his church. Like a call from Providence, he inherits a property in the Bas-du-Fleuve region and decides to take a group of homeless people with him, who, like himself, need a vacation.

Montreal, a multigenerational house loaded with books, paintings and knick-knacks, so many memories revived on the evening of one last Christmas Eve. Luc, a retired pediatrician and teacher in his eighties, lives with his son François, a pediatrician like his father, and François' wife Esther. Suffering and physically diminished, the old man has now decided to end his life. In a corrosive and sensitive verbal joust, he asks his son to end his days in privacy. The son then takes him on an existential and circus-like journey through the streets of Montreal where the father is supposed to go to his final destination, a hospital where he will be confronted with his ultimate wish: the choice between the finality of medical aid to die or a return to square one, the small pleasures of what remains of his life, alive.

Six stories about Montreal. 1: A young housewife from Toronto samples the nightlife using basic French. 2: The tale of a painting of Montreal's first mayor, Jacques Viger. 3: During a hockey game, Madeleine tries to tell Roger she wants a divorce after forty years of marriage. 4: A visitor to a conference on pictographs arrives at the airport, where the female customs officer steals a momento from each person. 5: As she is being driven to the hospital in an ambulance after an auto accident, Sarah recalls her life. 6: At a diplomatic reception, an older woman reminisces about her grand love in Montreal.

Pierre is in love with two women and has a stable relationship with both of them. His wife, all by herself, makes him feel whole. However, he has the identical feeling with his librarian mistress and cannot understand why this arrangement shouldn't be satisfactory for everyone concerned.

Alex has a deeply troubled mind. He also has a seriously dysfunctional - not to say incestuous - family. Why then, has he returned from his merchant seaman job to the rocky coasts of his home? Perhaps he couldn't cut manage to march in his father's footsteps in that job. His mother doesn't seem to mind, and lets him stay at her bed and breakfast hotel. His sister still seems to have the hots for him, just as she does for his (and her) old boyfriend Jean-Louis, who has just shown up. Even his mother seems to find him sexy. All these people appear eager to get their hands on his body, but he's too wrapped up in what's going on inside his head to notice.

On the eve of her final moments, a woman recalls her alcoholic past. She revisits her entire youth, including a binge that, at 46, cost her everything she had: "Loneliness and aging are themes that impose themselves on me, in one form or another. As for alcoholism, it fascinates me because of the revolt it underpins, and revolts me because of the unhappiness it creates around itself.

Two men bond as one recovers from an attack and the other deals with the impending death of his grandmother.