On the Pont des Arts in Paris, a rich and beautiful woman, Frédérique, Stéphane Audran slides into the life of a penniless female street artist named Why Jacqueline Sassard. Frédérique lavishes attention on Why and invites her to a sunlit villa in Saint Tropez, a place that immediately feels distant from Why’s ordinary world. The villa is inhabited by two gay friends of Frédérique, Robègue Henri Attal and Riais Dominique Zardi, whose presence adds a charged, uneasy atmosphere to the sprawling seaside home. At a lively party nearby, Why encounters an architect, Paul Thomas Jean-Louis Trintignant, and something sparkly shifts in her eyes as she leaves the crowd with him. They are followed soon after by Robègue and Riais, acting on Frédérique’s orders, who report back that Why has spent the night with Paul, signaling the start of a dangerous triangle of desire and control.
Frédérique visits Paul with a quiet, calculating charm and begins to seduce him in earnest. What begins as a private intrigue quickly grows into a full-blown affair, with the villa becoming a stage for desire, power, and suspicion. Frédérique invites Paul to move into the villa, and in doing so she forces Robègue and Riais out of the picture, reshaping the household to suit her plans. Why, watching from the margins, feels her jealousy tighten its grip as she learns that the relationship between Paul and Frédérique is deepening in ways she hadn’t anticipated.
One morning Why discovers a note claiming that Paul and Frédérique have vanished to Paris. Driven by a mixture of longing and resentment, Why trails them and arrives at Frédérique’s apartment only to find Frédérique absent and Why momentarily exposed to her own vulnerabilities. Confronted with the sight of Frédérique, Why admits that she is haunted by both her affection for Paul and her envy of Frédérique. Frédérique, cool and unrepentant, reveals a chilling stance toward love, telling Why that she finds her feelings repulsive, a confession that detonates the tension between them. In a shocking turn, Why seizes a poisoned dagger that had been on display in the Saint Tropez villa and strikes Frédérique, changing the power dynamic in an instant.
The aftermath unfolds through deception and disguise: Why phones Paul, impersonating Frédérique, and lures him to the apartment. When he arrives, Why awaits him dressed in Frédérique’s clothes, a haunting mirror of the woman who had first drawn Why into her world. The tale concludes with a cascade of choices and consequences, leaving the fates of all involved intertwined in a web of love, jealousy, and betrayal that lingers long after the final revelation.
