A woman in her apartment is getting ready to go out, she is ironing her grey dress. A man comes up the stairs, presumably to meet her but this is not certain. The style in the Robbe-Grillet book is one of elipses and repeating patterns, because of those structures we are never quite certain what the intentions of the protagonists are.

The basic central theme is of desire. Desire for the other and also for the self, each character is very self posessed and in many ways very full of flourish. The film ultimately is a bit of a test of desire for the viewer, they will see the story evolve and they will build certain expectations that are as much part of the story as the main narrative thread is.