Julie, the narrator of the film, lives alone in her room. For the first third of the film, she rearranges her furniture, writes letters, lounges naked, and eats sugar out of a paper bag. She eventually leaves her room and hitchhikes with a young male driver. They make stops at a restaurant, a bar, and a restroom. She gives him a handjob and he discusses his family life in a long monologue, before they part ways.
Julie then visits a woman, her ex-lover, who makes Julie sandwiches and a drink. Julie then suggestively begins to undress the woman, and they have sex. Julie's narration says the woman told her she had to leave in the morning, and she does.
Akerman wrote the story for the film a few years prior to filming that she described once as both very personal along with not autobiographical due to its structure that mixes with her experiences as a teenager.[2]
The sex scene between Julie and her ex-lover is the first graphic lesbian sex scene in mainstream cinema, and one of the longest lesbian sex scenes in film.[3][4][5]
Critical reception
The movie was well received by critics. On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film has a 100% rating based on reviews from 8 critics, and an average rating of 7.80/10.[6]
