The second screen version of Octave Mirbeau's novel (originally filmed in 1946 by Jean Renoir), Diary of a Chambermaid charts the ambitions of Celestine (Jeanne Moreau), a woman who comes to work in the 1930s for a Normandy estate occupied by Monsieur Rabour (Jean Ozenne), his daughter (Francoise Lugagne), and the daughter's husband, Monsieur Montiel (Michel Piccoli).