A black man in his thirties, from a very privileged and over-educated background, finds himself reduced to becoming a security guard in a supermarket in order to enter the working world. In order to be accepted by his new colleagues, he will quickly have to deny his culture and pass himself off as scum.
The French government is asking Gustave Eiffel to design something spectacular for the 1889 Paris World Fair, but he simply wants to design the subway—until he crosses paths with a mysterious woman from his past.