As the editor of French magazine ELLE, Jean-Dominique Bauby was a key player in Parisian social and cultural circles before suffering a massive stroke at the age of 43. He developped what doctors called a locked-in syndrome: he lost all muscle control, save his left eyelid. Blinking one letter at a time, he composed a book describing his new life. As soon as it was published the book became an international best-seller; Jean-Dominique Bauby died shortly after. This is the basis of Julian Schnabel's enthralling film in which Jean-Dominique Bauby summons enormous courage, determination and his soaring imagination to escape from his trap. Tapping into the limitlessness of his memories, fantasies, wit, and desires, he finds a way to race through experiences of wonder and grief, sex and love, fatherhood and childhood, faith and questioning, ecstasy and absurdity - and touches the very essence of what it is to be human. Along the way he is buoyed by five remarkable women: Céline, the mother of his children who remains devoted to him despite his betrayal; Inés, the girlfriend who still haunts him; Henriette and Marie, who give him the power to re-connect with the world and his loved ones; and Claude, who becomes his literary assistant.