Young first-time filmmaker Géraud Champreux (Johnny Rasse) travels to Normandy and a lonely seaside village to screen his first film "My Life with James Dean". Upon arrival, his phone is stolen, the cinema has no idea that his film is meant to show that night, and the person who arranged the screening is nowhere to be found. With only a single person in the audience for the showing a depressed Géraud gets drunk and has to be carried back to his hotel by projectionist Baltahzar (Mickaël Pelissier). Waking up with a hangover the next morning, he meets screening organizer Sylvia (Nathalie Richard, CACHÉ) who immediately unloads on him about her turbulent love life, surly hotelier Gladys (Juliette Damiens) seems almost infatuated with him upon learning that he is a filmmaker, and Balthazar both comes out to him and proclaims his love for Géraud after seeing the film. Both too kind to maintain boundaries and seeking inspiration for his next project, Géraud cannot help but be drawn into each of their lives which seem far less banal to him than they believe, and his own troubled private life has more in common with them than he is willing to admit. An understated and meandering comedy, MY LIFE WITH JAMES DEAN is nonetheless an engaging rumination on the allure of temporary cinematic escapism and the need to deal with life as really is. The open-ended conclusion can be seen as morally dubious and escapist, or it could represent the willingness to follow the not-exactly-stable examples of the others take a somewhat reckless chance on life.