The Heiresses

The brilliance of a young Isabelle Huppert lends quiet intensity to this piercing period elegy. In 1936 Budapest, the wealthy heiress Szilvia (Lili Monori) befriends Irène (Huppert), a young seamstress. Unable to give birth, Szilvia offers Irène money to conceive a child with her husband (Jan Nowicki)—a transaction that blurs the boundaries of the two women’s social roles and leads all involved into an explosive moral, emotional, and romantic minefield. Set amidst the glimmering decadence of a prewar Europe consumed by the encroaching rot of Nazism, The Heiresses is a coolly harrowing dissection of class and the cost of motherhood.