The story is set in France around 1900. A fashionable young girl named Celestine comes from turbulent Paris to work as a housemaid in Normandy. At the Lanlaire family’s villa, she faces a lecherous man and his sexually cold, domineering and jealous wife. Celestine is determined to avoid the tragic fate of the cook Marianne, whose child died, but she is desperate to find that she is pregnant again. The young maid is curious about the activities of the mysterious manservant Joseph: he distributes anti-Semitic leaflets and suggests that she can work as a prostitute for him in Cherbourg. After Jean Renoir (1946) and Louis Brunoir (1964), Benoit Jacques once again chooses Octave Mirbeau’s novel to satirize the bourgeoisie. Through the perspective of a young woman who is trying to save her life, Jacques shows the power of the seemingly powerless and the powerlessness of the seemingly powerful. The image of the maid reveals the dark underbelly hidden in the early 20th century and also hints at the instability of life today. via MiYing.com