Now Comes the Lightning, set in the streets of Montmartre in the time of the music halls, tells the story of Fréhel (Marguerite Boulc'h), born in Paris to a poor, dysfunctional family, struggling with addiction and depression, and charts her career as a singer against the backdrop of two World Wars, the rise of the cinema and the disappearance of an older Paris. An exploration of performance, of celebrity, and of the desire to maintain control over one's own narrative; of Fréhel's frenetic and continual movement from place to place, moment to moment, Now Comes the Lightning is the story of a woman alone, living a career marked by periods of astonishing production and lengthening periods of absence.