Acting
Annie Girardot's trembling restraint versus Andréa Parisy's volcanic unraveling.
Costume
Every outfit screams money and secrets simultaneously.
Direction
Delannoy's camera lingers like it's judging everyone's life choices.

Director
Jean Delannoy
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Annie Girardot's breakthrough role before she became France's most bankable star of the 1960s.
Released at the tail end of classic French 'cinéma de qualité,' it's now read as a bridge between glossy studio melodrama and the coming New Wave rejection of exactly this polish.