Synopsis
Philippe Abrams is a post office manager in the beautiful southern city of Salon de Provence. His wife Julie's frequent bouts of depression make his life a living hell. In an effort to raise her spirits, Philippe tries to cheat his way into a transfer to the French Riviera. But when he is found out, he gets sent to a little town in northern France called Bergues.The Abrams are tried-and-true southerners whose prejudicial view of the north is one of horror - biting cold, and louts who speak a garbled and incomprehensible dialect called «ch'timi». Philippe will go alone. To his great surprise, he finds himself in a charming place, working with people who are warm, friendly and welcoming. He makes a friend - Antoine, the village postman and carillon player, who has a tough-luck love life and a possessive mother.
When Philippe goes back to Salon, Julie refuses to believe that he likes it up north. In fact, she's convinced he's lying to preserve her feelings. To satisfy her and make his life simpler, Philippe leads her to believe that he is indeed having a terrible time of it in Bergues.
From that moment on, he sinks deeper and deeper into a comfortable lie. For two week intervals, he and Antoine have a grand old time up north and then, every other weekend, he is pampered and consoled by his wife who, little by little, overcomes her depression. Everything goes just fine until Julie decides to join Philippe in Bergues, to help him through what she believes is a terrible ordeal.
Philippe is forced to admit to Antoine and the rest of his staff that he has described them to his wife as a bunch of barbarians. He begs them to behave as such in order to cover his lie and scare Julie into leaving as quickly as possible. Philippe's employees reluctantly go along with this masquerade and give Julie the worst time of her life.
But Julie finds them out...
