Gabrielle (Marion Cotillard) comes from a small village in the south of France, in a time when her dreams of true love are considered scandalous. Against her will, she is married to José, an honest and loving Spanish farmer who will make a respectable woman out of her. When she is sent away to the Alps to treat an illness that has plagued her for years, she encounters André, a dashing veteran of the Indochina war who rekindles the passion she once dreamed of sharing with a lover. Gabrielle yearns to run away with André, freeing herself from a marriage which seems to imprison her, and at long last to follow her dream.