Roman Catholic priest Anders has begun to doubt his role as a clergyman due to past misfortunes and experiences when the phone at the parish hall suddenly rings.
After a baron steals his scientific discoveries, runs away with his wife, and slaps him in public, a man joins a Parisian circus sideshow as a clown whose act consists of being slapped repeatedly and becomes infatuated with a showgirl colleague whose father intends to marry her off to the baron.
A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.
In the winter of 1959, a single mother and her young daughter arrive in a rural French town, where they open an unusual chocolate shop that disrupts the moral fiber of the strictly Catholic townsfolk and mayor.
The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations.
