A young woman escapes her wildly eccentric family in search for a life of normalcy.

One day, Carmen Müller realizes that her husband Werner has been unemployed for months and has accumulated debts of 80,000 DM in their bank account. She comes up with a plan to rob her bank. When the branch manager and neighbor Lothar Fuchs, whom Carmen has always envied for his beauty and wealth, recognizes her, she takes him hostage....

With little or no embellishment, filmmaker Marguerite Duras offers a simple, often wordless chronicle of a woman's day. She and her friend are seen doing yard work, talking about their families and receiving the occasional visitor. The brightest spot in the day is when a washing machine salesman comes to call.

After a chance encounter with a wanted man, a woman is harassed by the police and press until she takes violent action.

An old and poor couple, Charles and Lucie, scrape by working as a concierge and an untalented antique dealer, respectively. But one day, their dreary daily routine is disrupted by the surprising news that they have inherited a luxurious house in the South of France.