An out-of-work Irish immigrant in Montreal remains hopeful that his luck is about to change but his disillusioned family grow tired of his constant lying, pigheadedness and instability.

Bernadette has a yen to chuck it all and go back to nature, in this French-language Canadian film. That's just what she does after carefully leaving her wedding ring where her affluent husband, a lawyer, can see it. She has bought a farm, complete with a run-down farmhouse and a live-in cranky old man. Soon, because of the wonderful effects that her sympathy and her outsider's perspective have, her neighbors perceive great improvements in their lives. They attribute these changes to something miraculous (perhaps taking a cue from her name), and hordes of needy people descend on her farm.

A misfit desperately looking for the murderer who has just killed his wife.

Staged in old Québec City, this film is about a rebel against the time-clock, whose hobby was snaring birds but whose dream was to escape the bonds of domesticity. A kindly satire of the dreamer in every man, the film is also a memorable portrait of Québec, the "Grande Dame" of Canadian cities.