Gwynplaine (Marc-André Grondin), a masked boy disfigured by a large scar that gives him a permanent and macabre smile, and Déa, a blind orphan, are taken in one stormy night by a huckster herbalist (Gérard Depardieu) on board his caravan. Unbeknownst to him, the boy will soon be a popular attraction to his traveling show. With an increasingly voyeuristic staging, the members of this little troupe soon realize they can make money by underlining their differences and turning themselves into circus freaks, especially Gwynplaine. Now famous, he no longer wears a mask as first the public and then the court welcome him. Although he doesn't know where he's from, that doesn't stop him from rubbing shoulders with the nobles, nor from entering a new world that takes him far from those who really love him, just as he is...

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