The grim Emile Zola "naturalist" nove lTherese Raquin has been vividly cinematized by director Marcel Carne. Simone Signoret plays the title character, the long-suffering housewife who dreams of a more romantic life-partner than the bourgeois Camille (Jacques Duby). Therese enjoys a torrid affair with burly truck-driver Laurent (Raf Vallone), only to realize the true emptiness of her aspirations. Ultimately, Therese brings about her own destruction, never truly learning to appreciate what she already has.