Amateur 1995

Still a virgin after 15 years in a convent, the demure Isabelle earns her living in New York City by writing pornography, which she researches by buying magazines and hiring videos. Her careful daily routine stands in contrast to the seedier corners of the city she frequents to stay informed, and it frames a life built on distance from romance even as she quietly witnesses the world’s darker appetites.

In a quiet café, a chance encounter introduces Thomas, a man who is recovering some memory after a fall from a window left him with amnesia. His story feels almost like a fragment of a larger puzzle, and as their paths cross, a fragile bond forms between them. In a separate café, another encounter unfolds with Edward, an accountant who becomes entwined with Sofia. Sofia has a brutal backstory: she was dragged into the world of drugs and porn as a child, driven by trauma to become someone who now seeks revenge against Jacques, a crooked businessman who looms large over both Thomas and Edward’s pasts. Her desire for revenge is personal, blunt, and dangerous, and she blames Jacques for a chain of choices that chained her to a life she despises.

Sofia’s plan hinges on information Edward unwittingly reveals: Thomas possesses data on disk that could ruin Jacques. With cold efficiency, she steals Jacques’ phone number from Edward’s address book while he’s in the restroom, signaling the first direct move in a dangerous game. After a tense exchange, Edward provides Sofia with a hideout—a house upstate that seems a temporary sanctuary from Jacques’ reach. As Sofia begins to weave her blackmail scheme, she reaches out to Jacques, testing the extent of the threat and the possible leverage she can gain from the data.

The stakes escalate when Sofia and Edward meet again at Grand Central Terminal. Edward warns that Jacques kills anyone who knows about the disks, a chilling reminder of the stakes at play. Sofia agrees to meet one of Jacques’ men there to deliver the address of her apartment—the place where the disks are stored—hoping to pin down a dangerous outcome before it pins them down. But the moment Sofia steps away, Jacques’ hit men strike, shoving Edward into a car and driving him to an abandoned building where he endures torture and is left for dead. The sudden violence leaves Sofia exposed and alone, escalating the urgency of everyone’s involvement.

Meanwhile, through a hired video, Thomas begins to remember more. The memories return in fragments, and with Isabelle he retraces the steps that lead back to the flat where Sofia and he once lived. A tense reconnaissance culminates in a dramatic turn: Isabelle dresses in one of Sofia’s costumes, drawing closer to Thomas as they edge toward the moment when their past could collide with the present. Just as they’re about to become intimate, Jacques’ hit men arrive, forcing them to hide in a rush. The immediate danger drives a violent sequence in which Thomas and Isabelle overpower one of the attackers and rescue Sofia, fleeing in the other hit man’s car.

Their flight takes them toward the empty country cottage Edward had mentioned. En route, Isabelle quietly posts the disks to her publisher, hoping to expose Jacques’ evil by sharing the files once they’ve seen their contents. The pursuit is relentless, and the danger intensifies when the surviving hit man tracks them to the countryside. He wounds Sofia, only for Edward to arrive in a stolen car and shoot the attacker dead, allowing the four to escape once more and outrun the police that begin to close in.

Seeking sanctuary, they head to Isabelle’s former convent, where the wounded Sofia is tended and a fragile sense of safety seems possible. Yet the building is soon surrounded by armed police who want Edward for murder, turning their temporary refuge into another battleground. Thomas, moved by the acts of kindness and care Isabelle has shown, and haunted by the gravity of his own criminal past, steps toward the gate with a sense of responsibility and remorse. But as he exits the front gate, a police marksman ends his life with a single, fatal shot, sealing a tragic conclusion to a chain of events that began with a chance encounter in a city café and spiraled into a lethal reckoning.

The film closes on a stark note, tying together themes of memory, guilt, and redemption while leaving the fates of several characters determined by violence and consequence.