Paris, 1910. Two young writers (Oskar Werner and Henri Serre) meet and become close friends. During a visit to a Greek island, they are fascinated by the smile on the face of an ancient statue and, back in Paris, the smile of a capricious young woman (Jeanne Moreau) similarly captivates them both. Thus begins cinema's best known ménage à trois, one which begins gaily and ends in tragedy. Based on the novel by Henri-Pierre Roché, and with its obvious connection to Lubitsch's cheerier (and psychologically less complex) Design for Living, Jules and Jim updates both with its lyrical construction, and Raoul Coutard's brilliant cinematography, which combine to make the story's restlessness a physical property of the film. "There are two themes," Truffaut said, "that of the friendship between the two men, which tries to remain alive, and that of the impossibility of living à trois. The idea of the film is that the couple is not really satisfactory but there is no alternative."