The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

At the Sénéchals' house, the Thévenots and Acosta attend what should be a dinner with Alice. Alice is surprised to learn there is no dinner prepared and that the hosts expected them the next evening. The group invites Alice to join them for dinner at a nearby inn, which they discover is under new management.

At the inn, the restaurant is under new management and there are no other diners inside. The party learns there is a vigil for the manager who died a few hours earlier, noted in an adjoining room. They depart quickly, preserving the social pretense as the night unsettles them.

Acosta, François, and Henri meet at the Mirandan embassy to discuss the proceeds of a large cocaine deal. Acosta notices a young woman selling clockwork-animal toys outside and shoots one of the toys with a rifle; he explains she is part of a Maoist Mirandan terrorist group targeting him. The moment hints at the dangerous political backdrop behind their bourgeois gathering.

Two days later the friends arrive at the Sénéchals' for lunch. Henri and Alice escape to the garden to have sex instead of joining the others. Acosta deduces that the Sénéchals know the police are coming and have fled to avoid arrest for their involvement in drug trafficking, prompting the group to leave in a panic.

The bishop, initially in gardener's clothing, returns in bishop's robes and asks to work for them as their gardener. He shares that when he was a child, his parents were poisoned with arsenic and the culprit was never caught. The revelation deepens the sense of hidden histories within the bourgeois gathering.

The women visit a teahouse where a soldier recounts his upbringing after his mother's death and his cold father's punishment. The ghost of the soldier's mother reveals that the man is not his biological father but his father's killer; she urges him to poison the culprit, and he complies. The vignette adds another layer of transgression to their circle.

Simone meets Acosta at his apartment, where they resume their affair and briefly retreat to his bedroom. François interrupts and she makes an excuse to leave with him. Acosta is visited by the terrorist who travels to kill him; after he subdues her, she leaves, and agents across the street capture Simone.

The group gathers again at the Sénéchals' for dinner, but a regiment of soldiers arrives and interrupts. The soldiers join the dinner briefly before being called away for alarmingly close maneuvers. The colonel then invites them to his house in return.

François dreams that the colonel's dining room is a theatre stage, with an audience angry at actors for not knowing their lines. In the same sequence, Acosta shoots the colonel, a moment that reflects the film's paranoia about power and violence. The dream blurs reality and fantasy within the dinner party.

The bishop leaves gardening duties to give absolution to a dying gardener who confesses to poisoning his former employers. Realizing the employers were his own parents, the bishop finishes the absolution and fatally shoots the gardener with a shotgun. The act underscores themes of guilt and retribution.

The Sénéchals, the Thévenots, and Acosta are arrested for drug trafficking. The police chief dreams that the ghost of a former inspector, tortured for repressing a student protest, releases the traffickers. He wakes to learn that the Interior Minister has ordered their release.

The Interior Minister orders their release. Acosta dreams that they return to the Sénéchals' for dinner but are shot by a rival Marseille drug gang; after waking, he goes to the kitchen and sloppily eats leftovers from the refrigerator.

A recurring scene shows the six protagonists walking silently and purposefully along an isolated country road. The shot lingers on their slow, collective march, leaving their fates deliberately ambiguous. The road sequence bookends the film with a sense of ritual and unresolved tension.