Narrative Structure
Present: Overture
After the residents of a Paris apartment building complain of a smell coming from one of the units, emergency services break down its door to find an elderly woman’s corpse in the bedroom, adorned with cut flowers. Another corpse is briefly glimpsed on a couch in the living room.
Past: Most of the tale occurs in the past
Several months before the opening scene, Anne and her husband Georges, both retired piano teachers in their eighties, attend a performance by one of Anne’s former pupils, Alexandre. They return home to find that someone has tried to break into their apartment.
The next morning, while eating breakfast, Anne silently suffers a stroke. She sits in catatonic state, not responding to Georges. She comes around as Georges is about to get help, but has no idea that she had a stroke. Georges is unable to persuade her to get medical attention until Anne finds she is unable to pour herself a drink.
Anne undergoes surgery on a blocked carotid artery, but the surgery goes wrong, leaving her paralyzed on her right side and reliant on a wheelchair. She makes Georges promise not to send her back to the hospital or to a nursing home. As a result, Georges becomes Anne’s dutiful, though slightly irritated, caretaker.
One day, Anne, seemingly having attempted to commit suicide by falling from a window, tells Georges she doesn’t want to go on living.
Alexandre, her former pupil, stops by and Anne gets dressed up and carries on a lively conversation during the visit. But she soon has a second stroke that leaves her demented and incapable of coherent speech. Georges continues to look after Anne.
Georges begins employing a nurse three days a week. Their daughter, Eva, wants her mother to go into care, but Georges will not break the promise he had made. He employs a second nurse, but fires her after he discovers she is mistreating Anne.
Georges sits next to Anne’s bedside and tells her a story of his childhood, which calms her. As Anne closes her eyes, he quietly picks up a pillow and smothers her to death.
Closure: Present
Georges returns home with bundles of flowers in his hands, which he washes and cuts. He picks out a dress from Anne’s wardrobe and writes a long letter. He tapes the bedroom door shut and catches a pigeon that has flown in through the window. In the letter, Georges explains that he has released the pigeon.
Georges imagines that Anne is washing dishes in the kitchen, and he gazes at her as she cleans up and prepares to leave the house. Anne calls for Georges to bring a coat, and he follows her out of the door.
The film concludes with a continuation of the opening scene. Eva is seated in the living room after wandering around the now-empty home.
