Isa is twenty. All her possessions fit into a rucksack and she lives through hard times with a philosophy based on smiles. She arrives in Lille after wandering from city to city, looking for odd jobs. She meets Marie, who is also twenty and has always lived in the north. A loner, like Isa, but for different reasons, Marie is unsociable, hyper- sensitive, and rebelling against her working class background. Both on the fringes of society, the girls end up sharing a borrowed apartment in Northern France, where they develop an intense emotional bond which profoundly affects both their lives. The film tells of the relationship that each has with the outside world and the threads of life they hopefully weave.