Set in 1997, the film follows Adrian Tripod, an occasional director at the House of Skin, a dermatological clinic, as he sets out on a troubling quest to locate his mentor, the infamous dermatologist Antoine Rouge. Rouge has vanished in the wake of a devastating plague tied to cosmetic products, a catastrophe that has wiped out all sexually mature women. The story frames this crisis as a virus that scientists claim mutated, now threatening men as well and eventually taking Rouge’s life.
As Tripod pursues answers, he crosses paths with a mosaic of organizations, including Metaphysical Import-Export and the Oceanic Podiatry Group, and encounters a spectrum of men trying to navigate a world that has become defeminized. The journey is marked by encounters with communities, schemes, and subcultures that try to make sense of a radically altered social landscape, where gender roles and vulnerabilities are continually renegotiated.
The search takes a personal turn when a House of Skin patient, with whom Tripod had built a close connection, dies from the plague. Traumatized and perplexed, Tripod checks himself into a mental health clinic, where the narrative delves into unsettling compulsions and darker curiosities, including a focus on foot fetishism that underscores the film’s provocative exploration of desire and control.
In a disturbing turn, Tripod becomes entangled with a group of pedophiles who abduct a five-year-old girl exposed to chemicals intended to force puberty so she could be impregnated. The plan is halted when one member cannot bring himself to commit the act and leaves the girl untouched, a moment that casts a grim light on the moral boundaries the film interrogates. Tripod then enters the room where the child is kept and witnesses a disturbing sight: the girl emits a cream-like white foam from her mouth, a detail that jolts him into a brutal realization.
From there, the film threads together the implications of artificially accelerating puberty in a child and the far-reaching consequences it has on her wellbeing and on the broader plague that haunts this defeminized world. The revelation reframes Tripod’s quest, turning his search for a cure or cure-alls into a stark meditation on ethical limits, human vulnerability, and the costs of pursuing science and power in a society where gender and health are in upheaval. The narrative maintains a restrained, clinical tone while steadily spiraling toward a defining truth about mutation, contamination, and the perils of unchecked ambition.
