[3] As Michael Goddard indicates in his book, The Cinema of Raul Ruiz: Impossible Cartographies, the film was loosely adapted from Massimo Bontempelli novel "Il Figlio di Due Madri", or "The Child of Two Mothers"[4] The music is composed by Jorge Arriagada, a Chilean composer who collaborated with Ruiz on other films such as Shattered Image and Three Lives and Only One Death,[5] indicating a common practice for Ruiz to collaborate with the same core crew members over multiple films.

Pierre soon leaves on business and is absent for the rest of the film apart from fleeting phone conversations with Ariane.

After spending an afternoon in the park with Hélène, Camille demands that he be brought to his true home.

Ariane tells him that she and the owner are old friends who have lost touch, and that she is dizzy and needs to take a rest inside.

Laurence reveals - although supposedly Ariane and Camille know this already - that the young boy on the wall drowned years before, and was the owner, Isabelle's, son Paul.

Feeling lightheaded with the chase and her distress, Ariane confronts Isabelle and asks her to move in with them, as she does not want to lose Camille.

Isabelle gladly moves her things into Ariane's large home, revealing that she had no family of her own until her son arrived.

The next day, Camille is told by his uncle Serge, that his mother, Isabelle, is waiting downstairs and that they have to leave.

When Isabelle arrives, Serge's secretary is waiting with a car to drive her to a hospital, where supposedly Camille is.

He tells Ariane that he knows something is wrong, as Camille has missed their regular meetings for the past two days, and this has never happened before.

The video tapes show Isabelle attempting to convince Camille that his real name is Paul and that he is her son.

The painting - 'The judgement of Solomon'- depicts the desperate conflict between two women who both claim that the same child is their own.

Ariane had earlier explained that she had moved the picture to hang on the dining room wall because Isabelle liked it.

Ariane assures him that everything has been fine in his absence, but a mutual friend has died, and that Camille has been a little anxious, so it as well that he is coming home because a child needs a father.

Ruiz indicates that he did not expect certain perception, such as the Argentinian interpretation that the film was a commentary on the missing children during the dictatorship.

The New York Times praised the first half to the film as casting "an elegant spell of epistemological confusion".

In an interview with The Independent, Ruiz discusses his motivations for the film and his ongoing relationship with Chile, a country he had long been exiled from.

He interviewer called his film "an exquisite and lingering psychodrama starring Isabelle Huppert".