Love at the Top

“(And How to Get There)!”

A shy bank employee, Nicolas Mallet (Jean-Louis Trintignant), invites a young woman to a café on an impulse he can't account for, and the evening ends in her bed. He tells his disillusioned friend Claude Fabre (Jean-Pierre Cassel), a writer, who takes the story as his cue to steer Nicolas toward the rooms where money and influence gather. Michel Deville follows Nicolas through each new circle he enters, a quiet man learning how much he wants.