Mathias Gold (Kevin Kline) is a down-on-his-luck New Yorker who inherits a Parisian apartment out of his estranged dad. However, when he arrives to sell the domicile that is vast, he is shocked to locate. His apartment is a viager - an ancient French real estate system with complex rules related to its own resale - and also the feisty Englishwoman Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith), who's lived at the apartment with her son Chloé (Kristin Scott Thomas) for several decades, can contract collect monthly payments out of Mathias before her passing.