Alex, a jaded young man in Paris Denis Lavant has been abandoned by his girlfriend Florence Anna Baldaccini for his friend Thomas Christian Cloarec. He now lives alone in a small room with only a few possessions, and a springtime heat wave intensifies his restlessness as he awaits the looming promise of military service.
Mireille Mireille Perrier and Bernard form a second, troubled couple. When Bernard leaves their apartment one night and uses the intercom to ask Mireille a favor, their intimate conversation becomes audible to Alex as he happens to pass by on the street. He follows Bernard to a bar and later retrieves a piece of paper that Bernard drops—a party invitation that will pull the trio into a night of shifting confidences. The scene shifts between the crowded party and the fragile interiority of the two women, hinting at unspoken desires and looming crises.
Back at the apartment, Mireille appears to be on the verge of suicide. Defying the impulse, she performs a tap-dancing routine, an odd chorus that intercuts with Alex wandering the streets, listening to a portable tape deck that streams snippets of thoughts and music. In a separate act of heartbreak, Alex writes a farewell letter to Florence and shoplifts records as a symbolic gift, a small rebellion against a life that feels chessboarded and predetermined. Delivering the records to Florence’s new address, he is almost caught in the hallway by Florence herself, who is in the middle of a clandestine encounter with Thomas. He escapes undetected and hurries toward the party where Bernard and Mireille were invited, hoping for connection amid the confusion.
At the party, Bernard is observed leaving early, while Mireille remains. Alex attempts to strike up a conversation after lying to the hostess that he is a friend of Bernard’s, swiftly being ushered into a circle of guests and secrets. He borrows the hostess’s telephone to verify Florence’s receipt of his note, and in a tense moment he stumbles upon Mireille in a bathroom holding a scissors blade to her wrist. He quickly retreats to the kitchen, where the hostess explains that the gathering is meant to commemorate the hostess’s dead brother, with whom she shared a telepathic bond. Mireille enters quietly, having cut her hair short, and the shock of the moment is palpable.
Alex and Mireille, left alone, begin a cautious exchange about their histories and ambitions. Alex claims to be an aspiring filmmaker, though he has only drafted titles, while Mireille confesses that she was drawn to the city with hopes of acting or modeling but never found her break. The two trade fragile admissions and mutual yearnings, and Alex makes a rambling profession of love that Mireille does not encourage but does not reject outright, offering instead a cautious companionship as he heads toward the train station to begin his service.
Alex ultimately leaves the station behind by pretending to find a restroom, but winds up losing himself in a pinball arcade while the train slides away without him. He phones Mireille from a telephone booth and learns nothing concrete; he hurries to her apartment, where he finds the door unlocked and Mireille seated in the living room. He embraces her from behind, only to confront the shocking reality of her condition. A flashback reveals that she had again been holding a pair of scissors to her wrist; when Alex’s embrace closes around her, the blades find their mark, and she collapses, bleeding from a wound that is implied to be fatal.
In the hush after the chaos, the couple’s intertwined longing—for acceptance, for success, for a chance at a future—lingers as a quiet, unsettling echo. The night’s events unfold with a visceral blend of intimate confession and uneasy suspense, leaving the viewer with a stark meditation on desire, memory, and the fine line between connection and catastrophe.
