In bohemian 1920s Paris, young writer Marya finds herself destitute when her art dealer husband Stephan is imprisoned. Rich art patron Heidler and his artist wife Lois offer to take Marya in for the duration of Stephan’s sentence. Heidler soon seduces Marya—and Lois painfully accepts his infidelity.

Starring Isabelle Adjani in a four-way love affair, Merchant-Ivory’s impeccable adaptation invokes the sordid glamor of Jean Rhys’s eponymous novel. Waltzing through cozy cafés and sexy nightclubs, Quartet dines on the bohemian hedonism of 1920s Paris while exposing the callousness of the idle rich.