Significant advances in biotechnology combined with biological changes in many humans such as the disappearance of physical pain mean that surgery can be performed on conscious people, but other humans experience more extreme physiological changes. A mother kills her eight-year-old son, convinced that he isn't human because he eats plastic as food.

Performance artists Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and Caprice (Léa Seydoux) surgically remove his newly evolved organs in front of a live audience. A group of radical evolutionists led by Lang Dotrice (Scott Speedman) have modified their digestive systems so that they can eat toxic waste, while government bureaucrat Timlin (Kristen Stewart) has her own agenda.