Paul Godard, Jacques Dutronc, a filmmaker, and his estranged girlfriend Denise Rimbaud, Nathalie Baye, are introduced in a tense prologue: Paul leaves the deluxe hotel where he has been staying and rebuffs the advances of a male hotel attendant.
The Imaginary
Denise begins to carve out an independent life away from Paul. She takes a manual job at a local paper run by an old friend, perhaps an old lover, in a country town, and she also secures a room on a farm in exchange for helping with the cattle. She starts drafting a new project that could become a novel, while juggling her responsibilities at the television station where she and Paul worked and trying to find a new tenant for the city apartment they shared. Realizing she is late to collect the author Marguerite Duras for an interview, she phones Paul to ask if he can handle it for her, and he agrees, though not with enthusiasm.
Fear
Paul fears life without Denise, perhaps life itself. After collecting his surly daughter Cécile, Cécile Tanner, from soccer practice, he asks the coach if he has ever felt like touching or having sex with his own daughter. He then fulfills a favor for Denise by picking up Marguerite Duras from a local college, where she was due to speak. When Duras refuses to give the talk (her voice is heard but she isn’t shown), Paul reads aloud some of her notes in which she says she only makes films because she lacks the courage to do nothing. > she only makes films because she lacks the courage to do nothing. The celebrity then gets Paul to take her back to the airport, and Denise’s anger at losing the interviewee lands squarely on him.
That evening, as Cécile’s birthday is celebrated with her mother, Paul’s past and present collide: his ex-wife wants money, and the girl wants presents. After another heated exchange marked by his alienation and crude innuendo, he parts ways with Denise in a bar. Later, in a late-night cinema queue, he is approached by the prostitute Isabelle, the character played by Isabelle Rivière, Isabelle Huppert.
Commerce
Isabelle’s section follows her pursuit of financial independence in a world that treats her as a commodity. After spending the night with Paul, she is briefly unsettled by a pimp who reminds her that independence carries a cost—he takes half of her earnings. Back at a shared apartment with other women, Isabelle’s younger sister arrives asking for money because her lover and his associates have just been jailed for jewel robbery. Isabelle refuses at first, but the sister asks if she can help launch her in prostitution, and Isabelle agrees to coach her for a month for 50% of the proceeds. While continuing to service a range of clients—some with inventive demands, like a businessman who orchestrates a four-person encounter at his desk—Isabelle also searches for her own place to live. An old school friend she encounters in a hotel corridor offers a courier opportunity, but the boss of that operation finds Isabelle too naive for the job.
A visit to inspect an apartment leads Isabelle to discover it’s Denise’s place, and Paul is there trying to rekindle their relationship. The two women form an immediate bond.
Music
In the coda, Isabelle seems to be thriving in her new home, while Denise has moved forward with her life. Paul, after a period of drifting, encounters his ex-wife and daughter again and asks to spend more time with them. He steps backward in a final, poignant moment and walks into the path of an oncoming car. Isabelle’s sister—now depicted as a prostitute—abandons the scene with the driver of the car. Denise’s ex-spouse urges Cécile to walk away, signaling a break from the past. As they depart, a small orchestra in a garage yard plays the film’s recurring theme, underscoring a sense of memory and reconciliation that threads through the narrative.
