Catherine Breillat's (Fat Girl) incisive and elegant chamber piece is a continuation of her ongoing exploration of women's sexual fantasies. During the overnight ferry crossing between Cherbourg and Portsmouth, sixteen–year–old French lad Thomas meets thirtysomething Brit Alice. Inspired, according to Breillat, by "nostalgia for great transatlantic ocean liners," the story applies this same sense of exotic romance to the cross–channel ferry, to droll and incongruous effect.