Despite the way her businessman husband treats her like a slave, a woman abandons a brief flirtation with a young Austrian aristocrat, to show the German traits of duty and obedience.
A failed novelist's inability to pay the bills strains relations with his wife and leads him to work at an escort service, where he becomes entwined with a wealthy woman whose husband is a successful writer.
Wealthy American widower Adam Verver and his daughter Maggie live a refined life in Europe, surrounded by art. Maggie marries impoverished Italian Prince Amerigo, while Adam marries Maggie's friend Charlotte Stant. The Prince and Charlotte are having an affair, which Maggie discovers and navigates through a silent, psychological battle of wills, ultimately using her cunning to preserve her marriage and protect her father.
Pregnant out of wedlock, an educated young woman is pressured by her father into an arranged marriage with a lonely farmer in this drama set during WWII.