It is a midsummer's eve and the old Old Count departs his estate to celebrate elsewhere. He leaves his beautiful daughter Julie, the last in the long line of his noble family. Miss Julie is despondent after the breaking off of her engagement to be married. She dances and drinks with the servants who certainly do not accept her as one of their own. A little drunk, she finds herself alone in the kitchen with Jean, her father's footman. Jean is a strange man--handsome and anarchistic, resentful of the class system but greedy to rise to the top. For many years, he has watched and desired the young Miss Julie. They carry on drinking and become involved in an intense and revealing conversation which draws them together as the night goes on. By this late hour Miss Julie has begun to show signs of her deep depression and sometimes unbalanced state of mind. Jean sees her weaknesses and exploits them, humiliating her and pushing her towards the self-destruction that she has been hinting at all evening.