Monsieur Naphtali (1999)
Directed by Olivier Schatzky

Film Synopsis

Monsieur Naphtali is one of life's natural recluses, a man who refuses to grow up and who is more than content to spend his entire life within the comforting cocoon of a psychiatric clinic.  But the day comes when, against his will, he must leave this haven of tranquillity and enter the real world.  With a small suitcases that contains all of his material possessions, he arrives in the big city, daunted by the prospect of a new life.  It isn't long before he has found a new home with a bourgeois family and acquires a firm friend in an attractive young woman named Caroline.  Monsieur Naphtali soon realises that he is not alone in wanting a peaceful life.  He sees nothing to envy in his new entourage of seemingly settled, well-adjusted grown-ups, who include a surgeon, a writer and a magistrate, each a success in his own right.  Like Naphtali, they all appear to have a natural yearning to retreat from the turmoil of modern life and rediscover the calm and security of the womb...