This droll, witty farce wryly blends reality and fiction while interpreting events from September 2011, when France was riveted by the kidnapping of the celebrated and controversial author Michel Houellebecq. He failed to show for several appearances on a book tour, prompting a series of editorials that he might have been kidnapped. (He eventually resurfaced, with no mention of foul play.)

That's enough for Nicloux to imagine that Houellebecq (played by himself and described as a Gallic Larry David) might indeed have been abducted by a trio of bumbling amateurs who engage the author in intellectual debates while plying him with cigarettes and wine.