Irate comedy with a dramatic finale. Sophie (a starring role by Sandrine Bonnaire) is taken on as a maid with the Lelièvre family, that lives in a beautiful but remote mansion. Sophie has a secret that the arrogant and self-centred Lelièvres don’t notice. If Sophie had not found a good friend in Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert, the other starring role) who works in the local village post office, her life would be hard and lonely. The bond between the young women becomes stronger and stronger and in the end so frightening and dominant that the young women start to shut themselves off from their surroundings. They couldn’t care less about the villagers’ petit-bourgeois opinions and Sophie no longer automatically accepts the authority of the Lelièvres.
