Based on the life of Marie Latour, this film tells the story of a poor woman (played with extraordinary care by Isabelle Huppert) who flourished as an illegal abortionist in Nazi-occupied France. She was eventually tried and put to death by the collaborationist government, one of the last people executed in France. Claude Chabrol is well-known for films that address the moral ambiguities of sex and crime, films about "criminals who do not seem to relate emotionally to their own crimes" (Roger Ebert), and this is a fine example.