One night in April, 1957. Nineteen-year-old Albertine escapes from prison, where she is serving time after a hold-up. She leaps from the prison wall, and in so doing, breaks a bone in her foot: the astragalus. She crawls to the road and hails down a car. She is rescued by Julien, on the run from the law, who takes her to a friend's house in Paris to hide out. While he continues his life of petty crime in the provinces, she learns to walk again in the French capital. Julien is arrested and imprisoned. Alone and avoiding the police, who are on her tail, Albertine turns to prostitution to survive and, from hide-out to hide-out, and from encounter to encounter, struggles at all cost to maintain her fragile freedom. But the physical suffering she endures is nothing compared to what Julien's absence provokes in her body and soul..