Feux rouges

It is summer in Paris. The weather is hot and sunny as the holiday weekend dawns. Antoine, an insurance salesman, is waiting for his wife, Hélène, a successful lawyer. The couple are about to pick up their children from a holiday camp. It looks as though Hélène will be a while and so Antoine decides to down an ice cool beer or two while he’s waiting. The couple have a long car journey to the south of France ahead of them: hours of driving at the peak of the holiday season. The heat, the traffic jams, the heavy traffic. What a treat.
Antoine has another beer. His fourth. Hélène arrives and they finally get under way, but the alcohol soon begins to take effect. Antoine gets tired and begins to lose his concentration; he puts his foot down in the hope that the rush of adrenalin will help him stay awake. But Antoine and Hélène start to row and the drive turns into a nightmare. Hélène insists that Antoine slow down. Antoine refuses to be told what to do. She threatens to leave the car. He doesn’t believe her. But when Antoine goes back to the car after filling up the tank, Hélène has indeed disappeared. Mistakenly believing that she has taken the train, Antoine drives like a madman to the next station, but he’s too late. Shortly afterwards, he picks up a hitchhiker. The encounter will have serious consequences for Antoine and his marriage to Hélène.