 Set deep in the French countryside just before the start of World War II, it shows the often idyllic life of a remote village in the mountainous Auvergne where a family from Paris have come to spend a holiday with relations, an occasion which marks a coming-of-age for their daughter Marie, the adolescent of the title.In the summer of 1939, Jean takes his family for a stay with his widowed mother.He works as a butcher in Paris and with him is his Dutch wife Eva and their only child Marie, who is 12.