 A divorced Swiss couple must come to terms with their daughter s life-threatening illness. He, a scientist, snatches his daughter from the examining table at the clinic and takes her away as if to kidnap her from the disease. His ex-wife, an actress, takes to bed weeping uncontrollably when she learns of her daughter s tumor. The girl s step-mother, an Asian-American physician, is clinical in her response, outlining a treatment regimen of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. It is left to the girl herself, ten-year-old Violette, to be calm, reassuring, philosophical, and even metaphysical as she faces death.