The funny and moving publishing sensation about an unassuming apartment building in Paris Renée is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building. To the snobbish residents she is all they expect from a caretaker - hard working, dowdy and unsophisticated. But Renée has a secret.

Beneath this façade she is a self-taught intellectual, devoted to arthouse Japanese cinema and has a cat named after Tolstoy. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma has also learned to conceal her gifts. The precocious and lonely daughter of pampered parents, Paloma is convinced that life is meaningless and plans to commit suicide on her next birthday.