Maria Fitzgerald O'Malley, known as Maria II, is portrayed by Jeanne Moreau. Born in Ireland to a French mother and an Irish republican father, she has spent years aiding her father in bombing campaigns against the British government. In Central America, a mission goes awry when she is forced to blow up a bridge, and the confrontation leaves her father dead in a shootout with British authorities. Orphaned and on the run, she finds refuge in the wagon of Maria I, a French vaudeville performer who travels with a bustling circus troupe. The two Marias form an unlikely bond, and after Maria I’s partner has recently taken his own life over a failed romance, they decide to team up for a song-and-dance act called “Maria and Maria,” even though Maria II is still brand-new to performing.
During their first show, Maria II unexpectedly invents striptease when her skirt tears, transforming their routine into a sensational crowd-pleaser that pushes the act into the public eye. As the troupe moves from town to town, they witness a small village being overrun by the henchmen of Rodríguez, a coercive landowner. Villagers are murdered and enslaved, and the troupe is shaken by the brutality they see. Maria II steps in and shoots one of Rodríguez’s men, a bold act that seals their fate: the troupe is imprisoned and shipped off to Rodríguez’s hacienda along with the enslaved villagers. While behind bars, Maria I meets Florès, a socialist revolutionary who is fighting to topple the dictatorship of the fictional Central American nation of San Miguel, and the pair fall deeply in love.
The next morning Rodríguez comes to the jail to carry out his plan against the two Marias, but they distract him long enough for the troupe to stage a daring escape. They flee with Florès, and in the escape, Florès is mortally wounded by one of Rodríguez’s henchmen. On his deathbed, Florès urges Maria I to carry his revolutionary cause forward, and she accepts. Maria II, initially hesitant, rediscovers a sense of purpose when Maria I’s vulnerable friends are endangered, and she joins the cause. As the duo mobilizes their supporters, Maria II uses her bombmaking skills to defend their fledgling resistance, while Maria I helps to rally a peasant army. The countryside gradually reshapes itself into a loose, quasi-socialist state.
Their radical movement draws both awe and fear. The Marias become revered almost like saints, a transformation that unsettles San Miguel’s dictator and the Catholic authorities, who worry that devotion to two women could destabilize the social order and be seen as sacrilege. As the rebels press toward the capital, the two Marias are captured by the Father Superior and his churchmen, who attempt to torture them with older Inquisition apparatus that proves ineffective. In a climactic turn, their army arrives to rescue them, and the dictator, Rodríguez, and the Father Superior are all defeated. The Marias emerge as revolutionary heroines, celebrated by their followers and the people they freed.
Back in France, the troupe commemorates the revolution with a Spanish-language musical retelling, where the two Marias return in striking black wigs, symbolizing a lasting legend rather than a mere performance.
Throughout their journey, the film intertwines acts of courage, political idealism, and personal loyalties, painting a portrait of two fearless women who transform from fugitives into symbols of resistance. The musical numbers, the dangers they face, and the evolving social landscape all contribute to a story that is as much about collective action as it is about personal bonds, leaving audiences with a bittersweet sense of how revolutions are lived, not just imagined.
