When maladjusted orphan Jesse vandalizes a theme park, he is placed with foster parents and must work at the park to make amends. There he meets Willy, a young Orca whale who has been separated from his family. Sensing kinship, they form a bond and, with the help of kindly whale trainer Rae Lindley, develop a routine of tricks. However, greedy park owner Dial soon catches wind of the duo and makes plans to profit from them.
Jesse becomes reunited with Willy three years after the whale's jump to freedom as the teenager tries to rescue the killer whale and other orcas from an oil spill.
Ali finds himself with a five-year-old child on his hands. Sam is his son, but he hardly knows him. Homeless, penniless and friendless, Ali takes refuge with his sister Anna in Antibes, in the south of France. There things improve immediately. She puts them up in her garage, she takes the child under her wing and the weather is glorious. Ali, a man of formidable size and strength, gets a job as a bouncer in a nightclub. He comes to the aid of Stephanie during a nightclub brawl. Aloof and beautiful, Stéphanie seems unattainable, but in his frank manner Ali leaves her his phone number anyway. Stephanie trains orca whales at Marineland. When a performance ends in tragedy, a call in the night again brings them togtether.
When Ali sees her next, Stephanie is confined to a wheel chair: she has lost her legs and quite a few illusions.
Ali’s direct, unpitying physicality becomes Stéphanie’s lifeline, but Ali too is transformed by Stéphanie’s tough resilience. And Stephanie comes alive again. As their stories intersect and diverge, they navigate a world where strength, beauty, youth and blood are commodities—but where trust, truth, loyalty and love cannot be bought and sold, and courage comes in many forms.