The troubled relationship between a rich banker and his dominatrix mistress.

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As the manager of some of the largest fortunes in France, a banker (Benoît Poelvoorde) promises his mistress $1 million (Laetitia Casta) and marriage down the line. In the meantime, during their nightly escapades, he asks her to indulge him in S&M games as a form of penance for his attitude with others during the day – for every bit of torture he dispenses, at night she whips him into submission from her perch atop her stilettos. But she doesn't do it for the money. Deeply in love and somewhat cowed by his increasingly cruel demands, she's ready to do anything to bring her banker closer to the ultimate form of justice – death.

The case of Edouard Stern, a French banker working in Geneva during the 2000's, continues to inspire filmmakers, journalists and novelists: after Olivier Assayas' Boarding Gate, Hélène Fillières follows with her own interpretation. Although the actors are convincing in their roles, having to see them drag along their ennui-for-two from one S&M scene to another, and in extremely antiseptic settings at that, makes you feel like you're being taken for a ride. Forced into the position of voyeur, you're then bombarded with cheap and lewd psychobabble.