The South of France, 1994. Two couples rent a villa. Fat Mitchell and tall Laura; disturbed Joe and cold Isabel. Mitchell and Laura run an antiques emporium, but have terrible troubles. Isabel is a war correspondent and has spent her life running away from normality. Not that Joe, her husband, is normal. He’s a Polish poet, a betrayer with a tragic past. When they arrive at the villa there’s a naked woman in the pool. She’s an anorexic poet who befriends Nina, the daughter of Joe and Isabel, and entrances everybody. This is no ordinary holiday, of course − it’s a Freudian nightmare, told in a fractured, flinty style reminiscent of Virginia Woolf.
