The story centers on a disturbed young man who becomes obsessed with the idea that his life mirrors that of the title character of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet.

Yvan, a troubled young man unwilling to accept the marriage, becomes convinced that his mother and her new husband killed his father.

After confronting his mother and stepfather with his accusation in the shape of a short film he produced (analogue to the Mousetrap play in Hamlet),[4] Adrien intends to kill Yvan but, unable to do so, poisons himself instead.

[2] Another 11 years later, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader came to a different conclusion, calling it an "underrated and unsettling" early work of its director.

[3] In a 2001 interview with Peter Lennon of The Guardian, Chabrol himself called it an "execrable" work,[8] while on another occasion, he stated that he liked the film, although it "wasn't quite what we wanted", explaining that he emphasised the humorous side of what had originally been planned as a more serious project.