Summer 1977. Jaime Olalla, a shy teenager who loves literature and cinema, returns home after spending a year with the Jesuits in Burgos. He plans to move to Madrid the following September to begin his studies in medicine. Adolfo Suárez has just come to power in Spain's first free elections, and the country is doing its best to rouse itself from its lethargy, while on the radio Rafaella Carrá and Jarcha are all the rage. Michelle, an enigmatic Frenchwoman, the daughter of Spanish emigrants, arrives in Vinuesa with a lorryload of books, intending to open a bookstore in her grandfather's former taverna. Michelle hires Jaime as an assistant and converts the premises into a place where French is taught, poetry read, politics discussed, placards painted and dreams dreamed.