France is a haughty, bourgeoise wife who is abandoned at the side of the road by her husband after a vicious quarrel. She meets Charles, a doctor. The meeting of the two strangers is the focus of the film, along with their encounters with characters at a truck stop.

In this earnest drama, a rural schoolteacher who has become a strong advocate for ecological awareness and is a committed opponent of hunting in the local swamp becomes romantically embroiled with a single mother who has returned to her birthplace since just before her boy (now nine years old) was born. Despite some hard feelings from the adult population of the town (who are very pro-hunting), the teacher's romance progresses smoothly until he learns that his girlfriend's brother stuffs and mounts specimens of endangered species.

1990 film by Claudine Bories

Aline Issermann's "Shades of Doubt" ("L'Ombre du Doute"), a French film about a wrenching family crisis, is set forth with remarkable restraint. The subject is incest, but the story's potential for tawdriness is never exploited. Instead, Ms. Issermann presents a discreet, methodical account of how 12-year-old Alexandrine comes to bring and then recant charges against her father, Jean.