 Reserved and cool, Margaret is the French wife of Peter, a British diplomat posted to France with their son Nelson. She takes a lover, a chimpanzee she bought from a zoo and installed in a flat. Peter asks that she bring the chimp, Max, to live with them. He obsesses about Margaret and Max s relationship, hiring a prostitute so he can watch Max perform (Max declines) and peering through the keyhole as Margaret and Max sleep. He tries to kill Max, then finally accepts the ape s presence. When she is called away to her ill mother s bedside, Max stops eating. Worried, Peter takes Max and Nelson to the countryside so Max can be with Margaret; once there, Nature beckons. Is Max lost?