Based on Erskine Caldwell's novel, Le Batard could also refer to this French film born from an American novel, with the American South transformed into the south of France. An unemotive Gerard Klein is Patrice, the Paris automobile mechanic who travels to Marseille to identify the body of his loose-living and long-lost mother, who has been found murdered. After proceeding to kill off her barroom boss, he meanders around the south of France looking for sexual relationships. He comes across a teenage musician and is attracted enough to her obvious appeal to establish a more permanent liaison, taking her with him to Paris to set up housekeeping -- for she is pregnant. Soon she is driven to the limits of depression and boredom caring for their home and a new baby, and he has reached his limits of confinement and responsibility -- so he takes off again.