Imagine a shop that for generations has sold all the accoutrements of the perfect suicide.
This family business prospers in all its bleak misery, until the day it encounters true joie de vivre in the shape of the owners' younger son, Alan. What will become of The Suicide Shop in the face of Alan's relentless good cheer, optimism and determination to make the customers smile?
The film is based on Jean Teule's novel of the same name. Director Patrice Leconte comments on adapting it:
I took so much freedom with the book that I feared Jean Teulé would be perplexed, even offended. After reading the script, he called me: 'I like it very much because it is completely different and yet I find everything I have written. This film will be yours as much as mine, as if we had both written it'. It confirmed me in my conviction that I hadn't just illustrated Jean Teulé's book, but that I had adopted it as much as adapted it.