Viktor is a highly successful and wealthy actor. For years, he has sought distraction from his inner poverty through his relationships with women. In this movie, his marriage to an emotionally overwrought woman comes under strain when he hops into bed with a teen-aged adorer. However, this isn't the relationship his wife should worry about. The actor has a far more sinister relationship with a plain, hard-faced woman who expresses her deep contempt for the actor. The more she does so, the more he loves her; the more he loves her, the more contempt she shows. Eventually, he comes to see that these relationships are mirrors of his inner life -- which arouses him to despair, as he cannot bear to own up to this.