When his father dies, a young man is introduced by his attractive, amoral mother to a world of hedonism and depravity.
Pierre, a youth, comes from his grandmother's in France to stay with his parents in the Canary Islands. His father talks oddly about his lost youth and leaves abruptly for France. Mom promises to take Pierre to a nightclub, remarking that people will think he's her lover. He prays. His father dies in France, and his mother wants him to empty his father's office; Pierre finds it full of pornography. His mother takes him in tow into a night world without morality, a world of sexual exploitation, exhibitionism, and wildness. What will Pierre make of this, and what, ultimately, will he make of his mother?—<[email protected]>
The story revolves around a young French teenager named Pierre (Louis Garrel) who has just left a Catholic boarding school in France to live with his wealthy parents at their villa on the island of Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, Spain. Pierre's father (Philipe Duclos) dies shortly after Pierre arrives, leaving his mother, Hélène (Isabelle Huppert) to care for him. Pierre soon learns, however, of the depraved nature of his parents.
While eating at a local restaurant, Pierre's mother reveals to him that she has been unfaithful to her husband many times with his knowledge and feels no shame about it. She then insists that her son accepts her promiscuous lifestyle.
Soon after this, Pierre finds a closet full of his father's pornography. His reaction is to furiously masturbate and then to urinate on the magazine pages. However, there are several far more shocking surprises in store for Pierre.
Hélène encourages her uninhibited girlfriend/sex buddy, Réa (Joana Preiss), to take her son's virginity. She does so but in public and on a concrete floor at Gran Canaria's Yumbo Centrum, a popular shopping and nightlife complex. Hélène looks on longingly as the partially clothed couple copulates with passersby raising no objections.
Afterwards, Hélène includes her son in an orgy with her friends, including Hansi (Emma de Caunes), a sweet-faced young woman which home Pierre is quickly attracted to. After the orgy, Hélène decides that she must leave her son to travel abroad. While saying goodbye to Pierre, she implies that something taboo has happened between them and that she must leave to prevent it from happening again.
Upon Hélène's departure, Hansi enters Pierre's life as a friend. She admits befriending Pierre at Hélène's encouragement but denies receiving a fee from her. Their friendship blossoms into a tender romance and they both fall in love. During their relationship, Hansi reveals that she has participated in sado-masochistic sex many times as a dominatrix with her friend Loulou (Jean-Baptiste Montagut) as the willing masochist. She adds Hélène arranged these encounters as sexual exhibitions for tourists.
After an extended absence from the movie, Hélène returns home with Réa in tow because Hélène has finally tired of her sexual adventures. Upon arriving, she finds her son and Hansi socializing at a bar near the villa. Hélène and Pierre greet each other by chatting and gazing into each other's eyes like lovers while Hansi looks on jealously. Finally, Hélène invites her son to sleep with her. He agrees.
Hélène and Pierre go into the wine cellar of the house. They begin to act out their desires physically. Hélène asks her son to cut her abdomen with a razor while he masturbates and as he climaxes she slits her own throat.
In the final scene paramedics cart away Hélène's dead body to the local morgue. The son is allowed to say his good-bye before the cremation. He enters the room where she lies in state and masturbates exclaiming that he does not want to die like she did as he is carried out by the employees.
