The film stars Jean-Claude Brialy, Aurora Cornu, Béatrice Romand and Laurence de Monaghan.

While holidaying at Lake Annecy on the eve of his wedding, career diplomat Jérôme accidentally meets up with Aurora, an old friend.

Eventually an opportunity presents itself during a boat trip on the lake when Jérôme and Claire have to seek shelter in a hut from an approaching storm.

Jérôme later delightedly tells Aurora that it had taken him great courage to touch Claire's knee and that doing so has exorcised his desire of her from him.

The site's consensus reads: "Told through precise body language and sunny wit, Claire's Knee makes an unusual love story feel universal".

Yet these 'fragments of a love speech' make up a special study of desire, verbal pleasure, almost literary, which accompanies every inclination.

[5] The film's visual aesthetics and narrative style has been noted for inspiring Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name (2017).