In the '60s, Madeleine leaves Paris to re-join her Czech husband Jaromil in Prague, but his infidelities and the arrival of Russian tanks in the city lead her back to France. Thirty years later we follow the romance of Madeleine's daughter, Vera, who falls in love with a musician in London who is incapable of devoting himself to her. Meanwhile in Paris, a re-married Madeleine has rekindled her love affair with Jaromil.