The story is set in motion by the arrival of Song (Song Fang), a new babysitter for Simon(Simon Iteanu), whose mother, Suzanne (Juliette Binoche), is a busy actress with a complex home life.
Song, a Beijing film student continuing her schooling in Paris, videotapes Simon, to his delight, while Suzanne, who is working on a puppet show, is trying to toss out her nonpaying tenant, a screenwriter friend, to make room for her older daughter, who is arriving from Brussels.
During the 2009 Ashes, the long-running cricket series between England and Australia, Suzanne McAnanama, a chemist from Staten Island, was dating Simon Brereton, a South African mobile strategy consultant.