Alps

A rhythmic gymnast rehearses a routine set to Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. The rehearsal showcases her precision and the rigid authority of her coach. A tense power dynamic begins to surface as the coach asserts control.

After the practice, she tells her coach she would rather use a pop song. He dismisses pop as inappropriate and threatens to break her arms and legs if she questions him again. She apologizes, chastened.

Alps is introduced as an unusual organization that meets in the gym where the gymnast trains. For a fee, a substitute acts as a recently deceased person during visits with loved ones to aid the grieving process. The core members are the gymnast, her coach Matterhorn, the nurse Monte Rosa, and Mont Blanc the EMT.

Mont Blanc, the leader, treats a severely injured young tennis player in hospital. Monte Rosa is on the care team and begins studying the patient to collect information for a possible substitution. The nurse's curiosity signals growing interest in Alps' methods.

The tennis player dies, leaving the family in mourning. Monte Rosa offers her services to the grieving parents, while telling the others that the girl has recovered.

The Alps' clients include a man mourning an old friend, a blind woman, and the lamp shop owner. The clients dictate what the members should wear, do, and say, and the group constructs scenarios for emotionally intimate, though mostly transactional, interactions.

Matterhorn regularly kisses the blind woman, showing boundary-crossing affection. Monte Rosa also has sex with the lamp shop owner, illustrating the group's morally ambiguous dynamics.

Monte Rosa visits the tennis player's parents to learn to imitate their daughter. They reenact a scene with the dead boyfriend, and Monte Rosa takes the boyfriend to the home she shares with her father and sleeps with him.

The other Alps members grow suspicious when Monte Rosa misses meetings and lies about her whereabouts. Mont Blanc tails her to the tennis player's house and uncovers the truth. He arranges to meet Monte Rosa in the gym, hits her in the face with a training club, and ejects her from the group.

Monte Rosa returns home and asks her father about her deceased mother's favorite actor and singer; he slaps her. The moment exposes a volatile, unsettling dynamic between daughter and father.

She visits a ballroom with her father and aggressively tries to dance with his dance partner and his new girlfriend, not stopping even after the woman has fallen. The behavior underscores her deteriorating sense of boundaries.

Monte Rosa returns to the tennis player's house, breaks through a sliding-glass door, triggering an alarm. She goes to the tennis player's room and gets into bed, but the parents enter and forcibly throw her out, lowering a metal shutter over the door while Monte Rosa shuffles on the patio.

The gymnast performs elegantly to 'Popcorn' while Matterhorn looks on proudly. After finishing, she runs into his arms and tells him he is the best coach in the world, echoing a bizarre, sadomasochistic moment earlier in the story. Her smile fades, hinting at the emotional cost of the relationship.