AllMovie

A troubled and emotionally fragile woman finds herself at the center of a firestorm, in this gut-wrenching psychological drama from France. Screen veteran Isabelle Adjani (Les Soeurs Brontë, Ishtar) stars as Sonia Bergerac, an instructor at a school for "difficult" children. As if that role were not demanding enough, Sonia's husband suddenly and inexplicably leaves her, and she encounters considerable problems adjusting to her work environment. She thus finds herself careening toward a nervous breakdown, with seemingly no way to stop. Compounding matters is Sonia's decision to buck the principal's rule of no skirts for female teachers, a policy she resents. Sonia's world explodes into chaos one afternoon when she discovers a gun in one of her students' bags. Acting spontaneously and indignantly, she seizes it and fires an accidental shot, wounding one pupil's leg. The incident gets misread and draws untoward attention, and before long parents, politicians, law officers and the media surround the school and turn an unfortunate incident into a full-blown hostage crisis that may well push Sonia over the edge of sanity.