In the last days of the Nazi-occupied France, writer Marguerite Duras awaits the return of her husband, Robert Antelme, arrested for being a Resistance fighter and then deported, while she maintains a tense relationship with her ambiguous lover and a dangerous game with a French collaborationist. Even when the Liberation arrives, she must still endure the unbearable pain of waiting.

Paris 1943. Hitler set up the systematic looting of works of art in France. Rose Valland, infiltrated as intendant at the Jeu de Paume museum, which has become the sorting station for works leaving for Germany, will take all the risks to oppose this spoliation enterprise.