My Night at Maud's is extremely intellectual, almost entirely conversational-and thoroughly enjoyable. It explores the moral and emotional isolation of contemporary individuals living on either side of the sexual revolution. The setting is provincial France in the dead of winter. A young engineer, Jean-Louis (Trintignant), who both practices and preaches Catholicism, is forced by climactic conditions to spend the night with a witty and seemingly irresistible divorcee, Maud (Fran?oise Fabian). Language and philosophy form the core of Maud's attempt to seduce Jean-Louis-and of his valiant defense. Jansenism vs. agnosticism; fidelity (Jean-Louis has convinced himself that he is to marry Fran?oise, whom he has only watched in church) vs. desire; ethereality (Fran?oise) vs. reality (Maud); the sweetness of now vs. the sureness of the after-now: the paradigm of contrasts established through the grace of dialogue is recreated visually by Nestor Almendros's black-and-snow cinematography, and editing that captures all the flash and fatigue of life's great debate, condensed into a moment.