Bored with both her husband and her lover, housewife Jeanne Tournier (Jeanne Moreau) spends a passionate night with attractive archeologist Bernard Dubois-Lambert (Jean-Marc Bory), a tryst that leads her to rethink her life. Upon its 1958 release, Louis Malle's visually poetic erotic drama created international controversy, including the arrest of a Cleveland theater owner for obscenity in a case that eventually went to the Supreme Court.