Alex, a brooding detective long estranged from his corrupt family, is compelled to investigate his brother Ivan's death. Flashbacks reveal not only the circumstances surrounding the murder of Ivan, but also the detached, sex-driven relationship of Alex and Juliette. What begins as a series of frequent but disaffected hotel trysts soon becomes complicated by Alex's unease over Juliette's passionate affair with her philosophy professor, Marie. Juliette, feeling alone in the world except for her tough but solicitous brother, Jimmy, and wanted by the police in connection with an aborted heist, becomes increasingly depressed, acting out her anguish in repeated suicide attempts. When Jimmy springs her from a psychiatric hospital and takes her away to Marseilles for a new life, Alex and Marie both feel abandoned. They are drawn to one another, despite their innate differences of character and simmering jealousy, in a bond created by their respective feelings for Juliette.