Joseph Solomon is a prominent Belgian university professor and specialist in the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza. He travels to Montreal, Canada, to participate in an academic conference, leaving his wife Kaatje back home. At the seminar, his supposedly serene, structured life collides with two deeply fragile local women: Colette, a grieving widow suffering from immense guilt over her husband's suicide, and her daughter Gabrielle, a college dropout struggling with severe bulimia who secretly works as a luxury hotel escort. While Joseph firmly rejects the romantic advances of the mother, he ultimately collapses under the intense, deliberate seduction of Gabrielle. When Gabrielle's boyfriend, Arnaud, walks in and catches them in bed together, a raw, explosive confrontation fractures everyone involved. Devastated by his own moral failure, paralyzed by intense shame, and utterly incapable of returning to his wife, Joseph abandons his life and hitchhikes deep into the remote Abitibi region of Quebec, entirely adrift.