She then tells him of three rules to prevent his untimely death: he must never play with the clock's hands, lose his temper, or fall in love.

On Jack's tenth birthday, Madeleine repeats the three rules before taking him into town for the first time, where he meets and falls in love with a girl named Miss Acacia.

Jack, who wants to see Miss Acacia again, eventually meets up with Georges Méliès, a magician attempting to operate an early film camera.

Georges helps repair his heart and agrees to join Jack in the search for Miss Acacia, which leads them to Andalusia, Spain.

With this first production, Mathias Malzieu brings to the big screen the novel La Mécanique du cœur which he wrote in 2007, a book which also inspired the homonymous album of the group Dionysos of which he is the leader and which was released the same year.

[3] For the choice of the latter, Malzieu explains: “There was a certain resemblance between the two: I cannot say if it is the mustache, the inventive side which is both a little depressive but also very playful or even the capacity for wonder still intact regardless of age.

[7] Sandie Angulo Chen of Common Sense Media gave the film 3 out of 5 stars praising the humor and romance, but criticized the character building between Madeleine and her friends.