Anne is a stage director. She has separated from her husband and is moving as well, yet she’s apathetic, drained of energy. Ben, an unemployed actor, is her friendly neighbor and seems very interested in her, but she wants nothing to do with another man. When Anne decides to stage Émile Zola’s L’assommoir, however, it’s Ben she asks to play Coupeau against her Gervaise. As the story unfolds, the line between real life and the stage production becomes finer and finer. When the two read the script, work on the characters and start rehearsing, reality is overtaken by fiction, and the pair seem to be retracing every step of the story of Coupeau and Gervaise, right up to the disastrous ending.