After sixteen year old suburban rebel Charlie (Harrison Gilbertson, HAUNT) comes home to find his father has hanged himself in the midst of one of his mother Kate's (Rachael Blake, DERAILED) neighborhood parties and then discovers that she has been having an affair with a neighbor, he becomes even more withdrawn. Blaming himself but finding it easier to lash out at his mother, Charlie tries to stay away from home as much as possible and happens upon the enigmatic French Maggie (Emmanuelle Béart, MANON OF THE SPRING) who he at first believes is some kind of witch (especially when she gives him an incantation to help him sleep). When he sneaks onto Maggie's property and sounds draw him to a "playroom" where he discovers her in dominatrix gear - bringing to mind Bulle Ogier in Barbet Schroeder's MAITRESS - beating a client, Charlie's first thoughts and fantasies are sexual. Worming his way into a job as Maggie's gardener with the promise of discretion, he is repeatedly drawn to her playroom despite being ordered never to go back into the house. He is at first skeptical about Maggie's explanation that she does not have sex with her clients but helps them forget their private pain; but a heated confrontation with his mother has him seeking out pain from Maggie at a moment when she too is particularly vulnerable after a visitation with her young son (Noah Fontaine) ends in tears. Although disturbed by his unwavering adoration, Maggie starts to "train" him - having started out as a schoolteacher ("that's when I started to smack people") - but she cannot help but break her own rules and probe for the the cause of his pain. Conversely, her own confessions of her failings as a mother give him insight into his relationship with his own, and their relationship evolves into something more affectionate. The comfort - sexually tense as it is - that they bring each other is threatened, however, by the suspicions of his mother and the jealousy of Leon (Socratis Otto, GONE), the social worker who is taking advantage of Maggie to ensure the return of her son.