Antoine Rivière, a highly-reputed psychoanalyst, is visited by a new patient, Edouard Berg. When Berg claims to have killed his own wife, the doctor suspects he is a compulsive liar. How could he know that he has been caught in a trap and it's already too late for escape?
An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.