Director Marcel Carné's smoldering film noir based on Emile Zola's novel centers on dispirited housewife Thérèse Raquin (Simone Signoret). Longing for the romance and love she's not getting from her unimaginative husband, Camille (Jacques Duby), Thérèse brazenly begins an affair with a brawny truck driver named Laurent (Raf Vallone). But when their tryst fails to fill her emptiness, Thérèse heads down a self-destructive path.