Adaptation of the novel by Graham Greene.

Jean Louis Chavel, a well-to-do lawyer in Nazi-occupied France, is arbitrarily arrested and sent to prison. Once there, he is randomly selected for execution in retaliation for Resistance activities. Desperate to avoid the firing squad, Chavel offers all his possessions—including a chateau—to any prisoner who'll take his place. One man agrees, a sickly man named Michel, who wills Chavel's estate to his heirs. After the war, Chavel returns to his former home, now inhabited by Michel's mother and embittered sister Therese. Using an alias, Chavel hires on as a gardener and winds up falling for Therese. As their uneasy relationship develops, a mysterious man visits, claiming to be Jean Louis Chavel.

A series of seriocomic vignettes linked to the impact of World War II on a proud family and its town. Set in a southern hamlet between July 1944 and July 1945, the story revolves around the family's patriarch, Jake Tibbetts, the feisty publisher of the local newspaper, Jake's compassionate yet spirited wife, Pastine, their sensitive teenage grandson Lonnie, and Francine Tibbetts, the wife of Jake and Pastine's estranged son, who appears suddenly one hot summer day, unannounced, alone—and very pregnant.