Story of Women

Set in occupied France during the Second World War, Story of Women follows Marie Latour, a wife and mother in a provincial town who struggles to keep her household afloat. When she helps a neighbour end an unwanted pregnancy, other women begin seeking her out, and what started as a favour becomes a source of income. She rents a room from an acquaintance, a prostitute, and gradually builds a more comfortable life for herself and her children. Her husband Paul, who has returned from the front with an injury, watches the change in his wife with growing unease, and the distance between them widens as she takes a younger lover. Based on a true case from the period, the film was directed by Claude Chabrol, the eleventh of seventeen films he made in chronological order, following Masks and preceding Dr. M. Colo Tavernier O'Hagan and Chabrol wrote the screenplay, and Marin Karmitz produced. Isabelle Huppert plays Marie, with François Cluzet as Paul, Nils Tavernier as Lucien and Marie Trintignant as Lulu. The cast runs to twenty-four credited performers. On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.5 from around 6,300 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.3 from a much smaller base of 191 votes, and a critics' rating of 7.3 from 13 reviews places professional assessment in line with general audience opinion.