One Sings, the Other Doesn’t

In 1962 Paris, Pauline, Valérie Mairesse — a 17-year-old student preparing for her baccalaureate — wanders into a gallery after recognizing her old friend Suzanne in a photograph. There she learns the photographer, Jerôme, Robert Dadiès, is Suzanne’s partner, though they are not married. Pauline reconnects with Suzanne, who is a 22-year-old mother with two children and is expecting a third. When Suzanne tells Pauline she cannot afford to have a third child, Pauline helps secure the money for an illegal abortion for Suzanne. To get the money, Pauline lies to her parents about a school trip; when they discover what the money was used for, she leaves home, drops out of school, and begins working as a singer. Jerôme commits suicide and Suzanne moves back to her parents’ farm, where she is looked down on for having illegitimate children.

Ten years pass before the two women are reunited at a 1972 demonstration in Bobigny for abortion rights. Pauline, now known as Pomme (Apple), sings in a feminist folk group and lives with her partner Darius, a grad student she met in Amsterdam when she was herself getting an abortion. Suzanne has managed to leave her parents’ farm by teaching herself typing, and has opened a family planning clinic in Hyères. Although the two women have to part ways again, they keep in touch by sending each other postcards.

Pauline later moves to Darius’s native Iran, where they marry and Pauline becomes pregnant. When their relationship becomes strained, Pomme leaves Darius and returns to France, where she has the baby at Suzanne’s clinic. She lets Darius return to Iran with their infant son on the condition that he impregnate her again. A pregnant Pomme is able to go back on the road as a singer. Suzanne, after an unfulfilling relationship with a sailor, marries a local doctor. In a brief epilogue, Pomme and Suzanne, their families, and their friends have a reunion by the sea.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 09:25