Set on the south coast of France in August, it portrays the shifting relationships between four very different characters who, as in the comedies of Marivaux, play games of love and chance.

The two friends unite in banning any more boys and gating her, while bullying the decade younger Haydée by branding her a little collectionneuse, a collector of men.

While he admits to her that he likes her greatly, he says his moral code will not allow him to sleep with her, so he tells her to seduce easier prey in the shape of Daniel.

He has brought with him a rare Chinese vase to deliver to a rich but crass American collector called Sam, who is struck by Haydée.

The two make their escape and, as they drive home, Adrien thinks she is good at heart and that now Daniel has gone he can spend the last week of his holiday in an enjoyable affair with her.

Rohmer made the film with no budget and out of order while he waited for Jean-Louis Trintignant to be available for My Night at Maud's, and this structure possibly inspired the techniques and principles he and his cinematographer Nestor Almendros would return to in his later films: extensive rehearsal with the cast followed by very few takes; relying on natural light wherever possible, even for night scenes; "spying" fluid long shots to establish characters and their relationship together in a specific space.

[4] The character Sam was billed as Seymour Hertzberg but was in fact Eugene Archer, a former New York Times film reviewer.