Alain Resnais's award winning French drama charts the lives of three professsionals in the form of a 'case history'. Gerard Depardieu, Nicole Garcia and Roger Pierrre play three middle-class workers who suffer a variety of stressful situations, all of which conspire to rob them of the happiness they seek. Running parallel to the storyline sits real-life behavioural scientist Henri Laborit, who offers his views on the biological and emotional triggers that cause us to behave the way we do.