[1] Four women (Anna, Claude, Joyce, and Cécile) live together on a small estate in suburban Paris and take acting classes in the city.

Cécile's departure and reticence to provide many details about her move cause some concern although this is eclipsed by the routine of acting classes.

These acting classes are held out of a derelict theater and taught by a demanding former-actress, Constance.

The man begins to tell Joyce that Cécile and her boyfriend are involved in a terroristic plot, with an arsenal of guns possibly stored at the estate.

He has been using aliases and invented backgrounds to get into the women's estate, which he believes will reveal a key to incriminating evidence of a judge's wrongdoings.

The film turns to the unhappiness and domestic strife the women encounter in their everyday lives, focusing largely on Claude.

Claude later watches a news broadcast and learns that Cécile's boyfriend has been arrested and charged with murder.

Despite her moving out of the estate, Cécile continues to attend acting class but the quality of her performance has declined after the arrest of her boyfriend.

It is later implied that Constance may have been complicit with prior criminal wrongdoings, resulting in her later arrest by plainclothes policemen and subsequent disbandment of the theater.

Thomas reveals himself as a policeman to Anna, Claude, Joyce, and Lucia and refuses to leave the estate until he obtains the key.

Thomas attempts to escape the estate with the key in hand but is either knocked unconsciousness or killed by two blows of a barbell swung by Joyce.

This performance mawkishly prompts them to reconvene with their former students at Constance's theater and rehearse a play.