Georges and Catherine Lelièvre, their daughter Melinda and son Gilles, are a wealthy upper-class family who live in a large, isolated country house in Bretagne. Catherine desperately needs a new housekeeper and takes on Sophie, who seems very suitable, as their live-in maid. The family are all caring people, if a little condescending towards Sophie, who hides behind a cold and unemotional exterior. Within the household she performs her duties very efficiently and is willing to do more than is asked of her, yet in a strangely detached way.
Sophie is quietly independent, spending her free time alone in her room watching television but is uncommunicative and resistant to offers of help from the family members. They become gradually aware of certain difficulties Sophie has in learning anything new, like taking driving lessons, operating machines and reading written instructions; things that Sophie does her best to ignore and to hide from others. Melinda looks upon Sophie as somebody who helps around the house rather than being a domestic servant, telling her that she should not let her father walk over her.
Jeanne works as a clerk in the local post office, an unpleasant and disturbed misfit who hates the Lelièvres and everyone with money. Jeanne befriends the lonely Sophie and begins to bring her out of her shell but in a decidedly negative way, encouraging her to stand up against her bourgeois employers. As the pair begin to bond the family grow increasingly concerned. Sophie becomes insolent towards them as she gains in self-confidence from Jeanne's influence.
Sophie eavesdrops on a telephone conversation Melinda has with Jérémie, her boyfriend, when she tells him that she may be pregnant. Melinda then discovers Sophie's illiteracy and offers to help her learn to read but Sophie responds by threatening to reveal Melinda's pregnancy to the family. However, Melinda, deeply hurt by such unkindness in her present emotional state, decides to tell her parents about the pregnancy herself, and also about Sophie's blackmail threat. As a result Georges convinces Catherine that Sophie must go and so gives her notice.
Jeanne invites Sophie to move into her flat until she finds somewhere else. On their return one evening to the Lelièvres' house to collect Sophie's things, a spiteful game of revenge commences and the already simmering class conflict boils over into unleashed anger with shocking consequences for all. In the final scene we discover how some unforeseen incriminating evidence will eventually lead to Sophie's downfall, but judgement of her is left for us to decide.
A powerful portrait of hatred, manipulation and mistrust – a devastating thriller with a shattering conclusion.
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