很有钱的青年妇女西尔维娅生活十分优裕，受到父亲和军官丈夫阿柯斯的宠爱。但是她不能生育。为了能继承她父亲的财产，她异想天开地建议阿柯斯和她的女友—个贫穷的犹太姑娘伊莱娜为她生一个孩子。大家惊奇过后就同意了。孩子出世，伊莱娜把孩子交给西尔维娅，自己十分悲痛。阿柯斯和伊莱娜真的相爱了，俩人难舍难分，生了第二个孩子。几年后，法西斯主义和排犹主义大行其道，伊莱娜处境危险。阿柯斯请求西尔维娅帮忙救救伊莱哪，西...

　　It has been said that most great twentieth century novels include scenes in a hotel, a symptom of the vast uprooting that has occurred in the last century: James Ivory begins Quartet with a montage of the hotels of Montparnasse, a quiet prelude before our introduction to the violently lost souls who inhabit them.
　　Adapted from the 1928 autobiographical novel by Jean Rhys, Quartet is the story of a love quadrangle between a complicated young West Indian woman named Marya (played by Isabelle Adjani), her husband Stefan (Anthony Higgins), a manipulative English art patron named Heidler (Alan Bates), and his painter wife Lois (Maggie Smith). The film is set in the Golden Age of Paris, Hemingway's "moveable feast" of cafe culture and extravagant nightlife, glitter and literati: yet underneath is the outline of something sinister beneath the polished brasses and brasseries.
　　When Marya's husband is put in a Paris prison on charges of selling stolen art works, she is left indigent and is taken in by Heidler and his wife: the predatory Englishman (whose character Rhys bases on the novelist Ford Madox Ford) is quick to take advantage of the new living arrangement, and Marya finds herself in a stranglehold between husband and wife. Lovers alternately gravitate toward and are repelled by each other, now professing their love, now confessing their brutal indifference -- all the while keeping up appearances. The film explores the vast territory between the "nice" and the "good," between outward refinement and inner darkness: after one violent episode, Lois asks Marya not to speak of it to the Paris crowd. "Is that all you're worried about?" demands an outraged Marya. "Yes," Lois replies with icy candor, "as a matter of fact."
　　Adjani won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performances in Quartet: her Marya is a volatile compound of French schoolgirl and scorned mistress, veering between tremulous joy and hysterical outburst. Smith shines in one of her most memorable roles: she imbues Lois with a Katherine-of-Aragon impotent rage, as humiliated as she is powerless in the face of her husband's choices. Her interactions with Bates are scenes from a marriage that has moved from disillusionment to pale acceptance.
　　Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory's screenplay uses Rhys's novel as a foundation from which it constructs a world that is both true to the novel and distinctive in its own right, painting a society that has lost its inhibitions and inadvertently lost its soul. We are taken to mirrored cafes, then move through the looking glass: Marya, in one scene, is offered a job as a model and then finds herself in a sadomasochistic pornographer's studio. The film, as photographed by Pierre Lhomme, creates thoroughly cinematic moments that Rhy's novel could not have attempted: in one of the Ivory's most memorable scenes, a black American chanteuse (extraordinarily played by Armelia McQueen) entertains Parisian patrons with a big and brassy jazz song, neither subtle nor elegant. Ivory keeps the camera on the singer's act: there is something in her unguarded smile that makes the danger beneath Montparnasse manners seem more acute.

　　故事发生在五十年代初期，亚妮娜（夏洛特·甘斯布 Charlotte Gainsbourg 饰）被家人寄养在乡下婶婶家，那里日复一日的无聊生活让亚妮娜感到快要窒息了，她只有靠偷窃商店里的商品来找回一点点的刺激感。
　　亚妮娜的偷窃行为被发现了，为此，她不得不开始寻找一份正经的工作，就这样，她成为了盖隆夫妇家的女佣。某一天，亚妮娜邂逅了名为米歇尔（Didier Bezace 饰）的中年男子，虽然米歇尔已经有了家庭，但亚妮娜还是向他展开了热烈的攻势，没过多久，米歇尔就沦陷了。然而，此时的亚妮娜早已经有了新欢——一个名叫拉乌尔（西蒙德拉卜若思 Simon de La Brosse 饰）的扒手，不仅如此，亚妮娜的腹中还怀上了他的孩子。

戴安（维吉妮·艾菲拉 Virginie Efira 饰）刚刚结束了一段失败的婚姻，虽然感情不顺，但戴安拥有美丽的外貌，幽默的个性，开朗的性格，所有人都相信，她一定能够遇到另一段美好的爱情，对此，戴安也做足了心里建设，自信满满。 　　某日，戴安稀里糊涂的弄丢了手机，一位名叫亚历山大（让·杜雅尔丹 Jean Dujardin 饰）的男子见到了她的手机，联系她想要将手机归还。在电话里温文尔雅非常绅士的亚历山大一下子就吸引了戴安的注意，她觉得这整件事情就仿佛一个美好爱情故事的完美开端。然而，当戴安亲眼见到亚历山大时，才发现对方的身高竟然比自己矮一大截，戴安能否接受这身高上的巨大差距呢？

主人公科林（罗曼·杜里斯 Romain Duris 饰）与厨师尼古拉和宠物小灰鼠为伴，他爱好时尚、美食还有威灵顿公爵的音乐，如同王子等待着公主，直到他与美丽纯洁的克洛伊（奥黛丽·塔图 Audrey Tautou 饰）相遇。他们相爱了，浪漫的婚礼上，他们接受所有人的祝福，然而在蜜月旅行的途中，克洛伊却染上了“睡莲病”—— 一支睡莲侵入了她的肺部。为了医治爱人，科林不惜倾尽所有……

苏珊娜（Kristin Scott Thomas 克里斯汀·斯科特·托马斯 饰）是个拥有优渥生活的中年妇女，她的丈夫是小有名气的牙医，并且正在慢慢涉足政治仕途，她有一双乖巧儿女，刚刚十几岁需要照顾，她自己也在努力重返事业——成为理疗师。这样的生活似乎可以永久持续下去，但一切随着伊万（Sergi López 饰）的到来土崩瓦解。伊万是个随处打工的西班牙建筑工人，帮苏珊娜家扩建工作室时与她相识，很快，苏珊娜对伊万产生一股莫名的欲望，以探伤为借口追随他到西班牙，很快燃起干柴烈火的激情。不可遏制的二人秘密相会，直到苏珊娜决意抛弃妻子与伊万私奔，完全不顾她盛怒的丈夫动用一切政治关系切断她的经济来源……

　　一次偶然中，保罗（Jérôme Robart 饰）结识了名叫弗雷德里克（路易斯·加瑞尔 Louis Garrel 饰）的画家，两人很快就成为了朋友。在弗雷德里克的家里，保罗遇见了女演员安格丽（莫妮卡·贝鲁奇 Monica Bellucci 饰），安格丽的美艳和奔放瞬间吸引了保罗的注意，保罗很快就坠入了爱河不能自拔。
　　为了追随安格丽，保罗跟随她来到了意大利，在这里，保罗成为了安格丽的同行，但是，初来乍到的他只能做群众演员。在工作中，保罗遇见了他的同行伊莉莎白（席琳·萨莱特 Céline Sallette 饰），两人一见如故。弗雷德里克邀请保罗到罗马游玩，保罗带上了伊莉莎白，一段复杂而换乱的感情关系就此展开。

在第12部故事片中，艾曼纽·莫雷特(Emmanuel Mouret)展示了三个有着不同态度和道德观念的亲密女性之间的爱情变化，她们捍卫自己的观点，主张自己的爱情选择。乔安娜离开了女儿的父亲维克多。尽管她相信自己的决定在道德上是正确的，但她还是忍受着可怕的后果。他最好的朋友桑德琳提倡一种理性的婚姻，一种没有爱但充满温柔的关系。与此同时，乔安娜的妹妹丽贝卡相信爱情是一种冒险，并与桑德琳的伴侣保持着一段秘密关系。