Frederique (Huppert) is a free-spirited and impish woman who has made an art of using her sexualty to get precisely what she wants from men. On a whim, Frederique leaves her disinterested husband and the family trout farm to travel to Japan with a wealthy businessman. Her enchantment soon gives way to reflection, navigation of the swiftly-changing sexual freedoms and responsibilities of a new era, and the quest for satori, the "world of ecstasy" experienced by her friend. But has Frederique grown up too fast, or not fast enough?