In a near-future world, where artificial intelligence has claimed most jobs, humanity is seen as emotionally unreliable and irrational. AI is credited with halting climate change, yet it views people as fundamentally ill-suited for advanced thought or steady work. Against this backdrop, a systemwide purification program promises to strip away fierce emotions to unlock higher-status employment for those deemed eligible. In this climate, Gabrielle Monnier, Léa Seydoux, agrees to undergo a DNA purification that would tame her feelings and broaden her professional options, setting the stage for a love story that stretches across time.
On the way to the purification center, Gabrielle crosses paths with Louis Lewanski, George MacKay, a fellow candidate who instantly draws her in. Their shared unease about a future where genuine feeling might be outlawed creates a magnetism that neither of them can easily ignore. As Gabrielle embarks on the purification cycle, she is guided by Kelly, an android assistant, who escorts her to a nightclub that shifts its decor and mood across decades, offering a window into memories that aren’t her own but feel personal and almost inevitable.
The first purification session takes Gabrielle to a past life in 1910 France. There, she lives as an acclaimed pianist who runs a doll-making factory with her husband, Georges, Martin Scali. A salon encounter with Louis rekindles a forbidden spark: Gabrielle, though married, begins to value the connection more than propriety allows. Their growing closeness is tempered by Gabrielle’s deep-seated fear of catastrophe, a fear that haunts her long after the salon. A visit to an uncanny medium, the La voyante, Elina Löwensohn, intensifies the sense that past lives are reachable and painfully intimate. When the factory floods and the dolls ignite, a disastrous fire traps them both, and they perish together in their attempt to escape.
Back in 2044, Gabrielle and Louis intermittently meet at the club. He reveals hesitancy about the purification process, worried that it could erase the very capacity to feel that draws him toward her. They decide to delay the procedure, but Gabrielle’s determination to press on persists. The second purification transports her to 2014 Los Angeles, where she is an underemployed model and actress, living a life of small gigs and high-contrast moments. She house-sits for an architect’s lavish residence, while Louis, now a complicated figure in this incarnation, is depicted as an unsettling presence—an incel who voices his grievances in online videos and struggles with approaching her in person. An enigmatic medium pop-ups as a virus-laden ad, hinting at the same uncanny accuracy as in the 1910 life. A moment of vulnerability arrives when the song Roy Orbison’s “Evergreen” fills a room, bringing Gabrielle to tears and triggering a vision of intimacy with Louis, who admits sharing the same primordial fear.
A third purification session revisits the 2014 narrative, but the mood darkens: Louis breaks into a home with a pistol and speaks of revenge against women. In the tense bathroom confrontation, Gabrielle pleads for him to trust her, but Louis is torn between love and hate. The moment cuts away to reveal Louis with the gun, confronting Gabrielle as she lies lifeless by a pool—an image that unsettles both the past and the present.
When Gabrielle returns to 2044, the AI proclaims that the purification has failed—a rare outcome affecting only a fraction of the population. She remains trapped in a life of unfulfilling work, yet a flicker of possibility remains: Louis appears at the club, and they share a dance to “Evergreen.” Louis reveals that he has secured a job at the Ministry of Justice, suggesting a change in his capacity to feel, even as Gabrielle grasps that their love cannot rekindle in the same way. Her scream at the end is not one of relief but of the anguish of a love altered beyond recall.
In a mid-credits moment, the medium warns 2014 Gabrielle not to enter the purification room in 2044, a warning that is cut short by a gunshot, leaving the fate of the lovers shrouded in mystery and the idea that some memories may be too powerful to be erased.
This tale blends a clinical science fiction premise with a lyrical exploration of memory, love, and the stubborn persistence of emotion. The film immerses us in tactile sensory details—the chill of a purification chamber, the glow of retro club lighting, the ache of songs that unlock long-buried feelings—and invites us to consider whether erasing emotion is truly a path to progress, or a quiet erasure of what makes life worth living.
Characters to watch for:
- Gabrielle Monnier, Léa Seydoux — a gifted artist whose emotional landscape becomes the central target of purification.
- Louis Lewanski, George MacKay — a complex figure whose ambivalence about feeling shapes the romance and the danger.
- La voyante, Elina Löwensohn — the uncanny medium who anchors Gabrielle’s visions of past lives.
- Tom, Kester Lovelace — a character who threads through the club’s scenes and adds to the social texture.
- Sophie, Julia Faure — a figure from the social world that interacts with the events around the purification process.
- Dakota, Dasha Nekrasova — another presence within the unfolding near-future society.
- Paul Poiret, Pierre-François Garel — a name connected to the era and aesthetic that permeates Gabrielle’s visions.
- Georges, Martin Scali — Gabrielle’s past-life husband whose factory and fate intersect with her memories.
- Gina, Marta Hoskins — a figure in the social world that accompanies the storyline’s mood shifts.
- Augustin, Felicien Pinot — another name tied to the broader cast of characters in the past-life vignettes.
- L’architecte, Laurent Lacotte — the architect who appears in the 2014 life and anchors Gabrielle’s domestic setting.
- Femme bal 1910, Céline Carrère — one of the guests in the 1910 salon scenes.
- Femme bal 1910, Hortense Gélinet — another participant in the same scenes.
- Femme bal 1910, Pauline Jacquard — a third face in the salon world.
- Femme clubs, Alice Barnole — one of the club-affiliated figures that color the night scenes.
- Le barman clubs, Theo Hakola — a bartender who sets the ambiance in the club sequences.
- Femme clubs, Dejana Poposka — another presence within the club orbit.
Note: The links above point to the actor pages on the site where these performers are listed.
