Suffering a headache, he goes into the pharmacy for aspirin and there meets Manesquier, a cultured bachelor who lives in a large house on his own.

On the Saturday each is to meet his fate: Manesquier will undergo triple bypass surgery while Milan will join his fellow-criminals in holding up the bank.

The website's consensus reads: "A lovely, contemplative character study with two wonderful performances at its center.

"[5] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 75 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

In 2011, an English-language remake of this film was released, starring Donald Sutherland as the professor and Larry Mullen, Jr. as the thief.