In the late 19th century, Marie-Claire Olivia, an English teenager, arrives at a finishing school in France. She finds comfort in a place that feels freer than her former restrictive English boarding school, where the students and faculty welcome her with warmth and curiosity. The atmosphere is welcoming, but the social order inside the school is quickly revealed to be divided into two camps.
The majority of the pupils are split into two camps: those devoted to the headmistress, Mlle Julie, Edwige Feuillère, and those who follow Simone Simon as Mlle Cara, an emotionally manipulative invalid who is obsessed with Mlle Julie. Olivia navigates this delicate web of loyalties as she settles into her new surroundings, slowly drawn into the shifting loyalties that define life at the school.
Olivia becomes an immediate favorite of Mlle Cara, who shows her a photo album full of pictures tracing the school’s history. When Olivia admires a girl pictured there, Laura, Elly Claus as Laura, arrives and quickly befriends Olivia. Olivia asks Laura whether she is in love with Mlle Julie, and Laura replies that she loves her, but is not in love with her. Later, Laura overhears an argument in which Mlle Cara accuses Mlle Julie of not loving her back and of neglecting her. Mlle Cara expresses her jealousy toward both Olivia and Laura, saying that both of them love Mlle Julie. That night, before bed, Mlle Julie passes Olivia’s room and kisses her on the eyes while telling her to go to sleep; Olivia responds by kissing her hands in return, which Mlle Julie tries to brush off as mere affection.
Around Christmas time, Laura leaves the school again, telling Olivia that she can’t bear Mlle Cara’s jealousy and warning Olivia to be careful. Directly after she leaves, Olivia goes to Mlle Julie and confesses that she loves her. At the Christmas ball, Mlle Julie kisses another pupil on the neck in front of Olivia, and later promises to join Olivia in her room later that night to give her bonbons. However, Mlle Julie does not come to visit, and Olivia cries herself to sleep by the fire in Mlle Julie’s room, where she is later discovered by Mlle Cara. Mlle Cara is enraged, attacking Olivia and insisting that she is a disappointment. When Mlle Julie enters the room to see them fighting, she is forced to confront the tension between her feelings and the jealous power dynamics at the school.
In the aftermath, Mlle Julie announces that she will be leaving the school, leaving it in the care of Mlle Cara. The night before her departure, Mlle Julie returns to Olivia and confesses that she loves her. She then leaves to fetch help after a shocking turn: Mlle Cara had died from an overdose of chloral. Heartbroken, Mlle Julie cradles the truth that Mlle Cara was the only person she ever truly loved. In the end, Olivia departs the school by carriage, leaving open the possibility that Mlle Julie may keep her word and also leave, stepping beyond the walls that once defined her life.
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