Anne Lapouge is changing her clothes while her students count from 1 to 30. She’s a
school teacher for children, and one of her students watches as she puts her dress on,
but quickly turns around when she catches him. She’s getting ready for a performance
her students are going to do in front of the school and their parents. Her students love
her, and they’re excited for the presentation. Anne is going to play the keyboard and the
students are going to sing. The song they sing isn’t appropriate for
their age, it talks about a forbidden love. The parents try to encourage their children,
but they understand the meaning of the song while the kids don’t. Anne also sings a
part of the song with passion, and some parents are holding their laughter. In the end, though,
they are applauded. After the presentation, Anne waits in the
classroom for the father of one of her students and when he arrives, they start kissing and
laughing about the song because the man, Vladimir, is married. They are having an affair, and
it’s amusing to Anne that she made her students, including Alice, Vladimir’s daughter, sing
about a forbidden relationship. Another thing Anne is excited about is that she’s finally
on vacation. Vladimir promised her that he would take her on a trip, but he bursts her
bubble when he informs her that he is going on a trip with his family instead. His wife,
Elle, was supposed to go to the seaside, but she isn’t anymore. Anne is upset, she tries
to talk Vladimir into finding an excuse to his wife so they can spend time together,
but he can’t. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, and it destroys her dream of spending
more time with him. Vladimir leaves her when he gets a message
from Elle. What he doesn’t know is that Anne isn’t giving up so easily. She plans
on crashing his trip with his family, and maybe find some time to be with him. Next,
she arrives at the place she’s staying in the mountains. She’s not dressed for hiking,
and she has a huge suitcase to carry, but Anne’s relentless. At first, she looks for
Vladimir everywhere, with no success. Then she decides to go to the small, rustic inn
she has made reservations for. The owner of the inn explains to her how hiking with donkeys
works in that region. There are many places she can go on a 6-day hike. Each day she spends
there is a different hike, which probably will give her a chance of finding Vladimir.
It’s very expensive, but worth it if she sees her lover.
The room she’s staying in is shared by other people, and her bed is a bunk bed. On the
first day of the trip, Anne dresses up to have breakfast. The other people staying at
the inn are very different from her. They ask her if she has a donkey, to which she
answers she does, and they laugh at her. When she inquires if they don’t have one, they
say that it’s optional, and they’d rather not have one. The objective of the donkey
is to carry things for you while you are hiking, but there’s no need for that because there
are backpacks that serve the same purpose. Anne finds out that she’s the only one in
the group that will have a donkey. Then, she explains that she was supposed to meet her
lover there, but that he’s taking another route. Her plan is to surprise him. One of
the ladies having breakfast with her, tells her to call him, and even offers her cellphone.
She replies that she can’t because he isn’t alone there, he’s with his wife. Then when
people ask her questions about her affair, she explains that she’s his daughter’s
teacher, and everyone’s shocked. Anne tries to play it out as a joke, but no one laughs.
Another woman at the table says she should go back home and find a single man for herself.
Anne’s embarrassed and doesn’t know what to say. The inn’s owner says that they won’t
refund her if she leaves. People start asking her if she’s trained for the hike, and Anne
starts getting annoyed at so many questions. Only one woman supports her and tells her
that maybe she’ll find her lover during the hike. That comforts Anne a bit.
It’s time for her first hike. She meets her donkey, Patrick, and gets ready to go.
At first, she’s scared of Patrick. The instructor explains what she needs to do to calm him
if it’s needed, but Anne doesn’t understand anything. She’s definitely not ready for
the hike. Still, she’s determined. Just at the beginning, Patrick balks. Anne tries
to make him move, but he doesn’t. She pulls him, pushes him, and she’s almost ready
to give up. There’s no one around to help her out. Finally, she talks to Patrick and
he starts walking again. A couple of minutes later, he balks again.
Anne argues with him, but the donkey is also determined to not walk anymore. With nothing
to do, she decides to take a break. She ties Patrick around a tree with a terrible knot,
puts a picnic towel on the ground and leaves to pee. While she’s peeing, Patrick pulls
the picnic towel. To make things worse, there’s a man stalking her, and when Anne sees him,
she runs after Patrick and leaves as fast as she can. Thankfully, Patrick obeys her
and they continue hiking. Next, the man stalking her suddenly appears.
He’s also staying at the inn, and he heard her talk about her affair during breakfast.
The man is very nosy. He asks questions about her affair, why she’s going out with a married
man, and even tells her that with the way she looks, she should be spoiled. Then, when
Patrick balks, he yells at him, which annoys Anne even more. She asks him to stop because
it’s making Patrick scared. The man goes on saying that he could never have an affair
because he’d be scared of getting caught. Patrick balks again, and the man yells at
him, even though Anne asked him not to. It starts getting very uncomfortable. The man
keeps on talking about affairs and yelling at Patrick, until Anne yells at him to stop.
The man is shocked she yelled at him. Anne apologizes and says that she wants to be alone
with Patrick. The man finally gets the hind and leaves Anne alone.
Anne continues on her way, and though hiking can be difficult with a donkey, it’s very
beautiful. She can see the mountains and valleys filled with flowers. At night, after hours
hiking, she arrives at her destination. Everyone is already there having dinner. Anne’s tired
and sits down to eat. It’s late, so people start leaving to go to bed, and Anne's alone.
As she eats, she watches the owner of the inn and her husband having fun and dancing
with each other. That reminds Anne of her own relationship, and how sad it is that she's
alone after hiking the whole day by herself. She starts crying very loudly, and the owner
of the inn, Eva, asks her what’s wrong and if the donkey gave her a hard time. Anne says
she gives up, that she’s going back to Paris because she didn’t go there with good reasons.
Eva tells her she knows why she has gone there. Eva’s husband, Idriss, tells her that Robert
Louis Stevenson, the reason why people do that hiking trail, came there because of a
woman, Fanny Osbourne. She was a married American woman with two children, who had gone to France
to study Arts. She met Stevenson while studying, and they had an affair. Even though it was
a scandal at the time, they were in love and wanted to get married. But first, Fanny needed
to get divorced. She went back to the U.S., and because it was a long journey, Stevenson
didn’t have any news from her. He felt abandoned, and to forget her, he went on a journey with
a donkey called Modestine. He couldn’t forget her, though. So he decided to go after her
in California. When Stevenson got there, he found out Fanny had gotten divorced, so they
finally married. Eva tells Anne that what’s important is
the path, not the destination. Still, Anne wants to go back to Paris. She thanks Eva
and Idriss, and leaves to go to sleep. Next day, it’s time for Anne to go back. Eva
and Idriss help her with Patrick and she leaves. Once again, Patrick balks in the middle of
the way, and triggers Anne. She screams in anger and frustration. She fights with Patrick,
screaming that she’s sick of him and even grabs the whip to beat him up. While she puts
her anger out on him, he just stands there. She keeps whipping him and crying because
she doesn’t know where Vladimir is. She thinks he made the trip up so he would have
an excuse to not be with her. Maybe he’s not even with his wife. She feels like an
idiot for moving her whole life for a guy she doesn’t even trust completely. After
her outburst, she apologizes to Patrick and they continue their hike. Meanwhile, Anne
complains to Patrick about Vladimir. She tells him that she doesn’t impose on him, that
there’s no reason why he would lie to her. It’s then that Anne realizes that Patrick
stops balking if she talks to him. So she tells him her whole life, from the moment
she kissed her first boy in the cemetery. She admits that she has the worst taste in
men. Before Vladimir, she was dating a good man with a good job, single, intelligent,
handsome. The only problem was that he had issues with his parents and couldn’t form
a relationship with her. Now he is dating another girl, they are even living together.
Before that guy, she met a man who was renting a place below hers. It only lasted two weeks,
but then he had to go back to Mexico. Still, they talked through Skype and when she finally
went to visit him, he disappeared and she never heard of him again. There was also Emmanuel,
an activist, but he didn’t want a family. She confesses she didn’t like Vladimir,
he wasn’t her type. Then she realized that she was waiting all day for him to appear
at the school to grab his daughter. She tried not to fall for him because not only was he
married, but she was also his daughter’s teacher. She didn’t try hard enough, though,
because as soon as she was home, she called him. Vladimir wanted to have an affair too.
One day, when there was no one at school, she locked the door and they almost got intimate
in the classroom. Now Anne’s confused. She doesn’t know
what to do. It’s obviously not working out, after all, his family is still his priority,
not her. At the same time, she feels free with him. She loves the way Vladimir looks
at her, and they’re always laughing together. She’s not jealous of him, but he’s jealous
of her. She loves his appearance, his hands, his skin, everything about him is amazing
to her. Later on, she’s napping under a tree when she receives a message from Vladimir.
He’s asking where she is, that he’s worried about her. Anne’s really happy that Vladimir
remembered her. She’s so happy that she dances around poor Patrick.
She starts walking back, telling Patrick that the only thing she needed was to disappear
for Vladimir to worry about her. She’s so absorbed in her own happiness that she doesn’t
realize she left the trail. She’s in the middle of the woods and there are no markers.
To make everything worse, she has no signal on her cell phone anymore. She tries to find
the way back with no success. It’s almost dark, she’s lost, in the middle of the woods,
with no way to communicate with anyone. At least her cell phone has a lantern. As she’s
walking, she sees an animal and freaks out. There’s no way out of the woods without
light, so she ends up sleeping with Patrick on the floor.
Next day, she wakes up with a bunch of animals surrounding her. There’s even a fox and
an owl staring at her. Despite her previous fear, she’s amazed with the animals. With
daylight, Anne is able to walk through the woods again, and she finds a marker at last.
Unfortunately, she’s not on her way to Paris anymore. She’s back at Eva and Idriss’
inn. Idriss thinks it’s fate that she’s back. With nothing to do, Anne reads Stevenson’s
book about his own journey. It says that the little trip he took with his donkey was very
enjoyable, even though it started bad. In the end, he had the best of luck, and a loyal
friend. It’s very similar to Anne’s own experience with Patrick. It started difficult,
but at least she could vent to him with the absolute certainty that he would never tell
her secrets. While reading, Anne sleeps. She wakes up later
with the sounds of voices, and she instantly recognizes one of them. It’s Vladimir, he’s
hiking with his family towards the inn. Anne’s really happy, but nervous at the same time.
His wife and kid were there, too. In the end, she decides to dress up and meet them. With
all the confidence in the world, Anne walks to the patio where all hikers are. She sits
down at a table and waits. A handsome man sitting right in front of her keeps staring
at her, but Anne doesn’t even realize. She’s too busy waiting for Vladimir to notice her.
It’s Alice, his daughter, who sees her there and asks her mom if she can talk to Anne.
Elle informs Vladimir that Alice’s teacher is there, and Vladimir cannot believe it.
Elle goes with Alice to talk to Anne, and she pretends she’s surprised to see them
there. She greets Alice and Elle while Vladimir only stares. They talk about hiking for some
time, and Elle calls Vladimir to come. He’s visibly upset with the situation, and what
is worse is that everyone at the inn knows the story of Anne’s love affair.
Idriss arrives and asks if Anne’s recovered. Elle asks if she’s well, and Anne tells
them that she slept outdoors because she got lost. Elle's surprised and in awe that Anne
managed to stay alone in the woods. Anne and Elle talk and laugh while Vladimir is uncomfortable.
Unfortunately for him, they find out that they have the same route the next day, and
Elle offers Anne to come with them. She instantly accepts. Alice asks if Anne wants to see her
donkey, and she goes. When they get to the pasture, Patrick is there with Alice’s donkey.
Patrick comes closer and Anne introduces the family to him. When she says Vladimir’s
name, which she also pretends she didn’t know, Patrick starts braying. He only stops
when Vladimir leaves to take a shower. Anne leaves Alice and Elle with the donkeys
and goes after Vladimir. She expected him to be happy to see her, but he’s mad at
her. He asks if she’s crazy, and begs her not to go with them the next day. He’s treating
her badly, but it seems like Anne doesn’t care. She’s still so happy that she found
him, and she genuinely thinks they are going to be together. Vladimir rains on her parade
when he tells her she can’t go with them, that Alice doesn’t deserve that his mistress
comes with him on a family trip. Still, Anne disagrees. She tells him that she wants to
finish her hike, that she loves it and gets along with Patrick. Vladimir doesn’t believe
her at all, and asks why she didn’t wait one week to see him, like they had agreed
to. She replies that it’s too long for her to go without him, he agrees and they hug.
When Vladimir tries to have more than a kiss from her, she leaves and comes face to face
with Idriss. He questions if she’s okay and she answers she is.
At night, they are all having dinner together. Anne’s talking to another hiker, and her
responses are exaggerated to get a reaction from Vladimir. He notices it, and asks Alice
to go to bed. Elle goes too, because she’s tired, so now it’s the perfect opportunity
for Anne. She keeps staring at Vladimir the whole time. When they go back to the room
they’re all sharing, Anne stares at Vladimir and Elle as they are talking. Vladimir is
sleeping on the bunk bed with Anne, though on top of her. In the middle of the night,
Anne wakes up and goes after Patrick. Vladimir follows her and they get intimate right next
to Patrick. Next day, Anne’s waiting for Vladimir and
his family with Patrick. Elle arrives and they trade pleasantries. She has no idea Anne
slept with her husband the night before, and now she’s going with them on a hike. While
the family hikes together, Anne stays back with Patrick, watching them. When she has
trouble with Patrick, Elle, who knows how to deal with donkeys, comes to help her out.
Patrick starts braying again, almost as if he wants to tell Elle what he witnessed. She
offers to stay with Anne for a while so she doesn’t get behind, and Anne’s embarrassed.
Elle’s a good woman. She asks how Anne got the idea of going hiking with a donkey, and
Anne lies that another man told her he went hiking and it made her want to do it too.
Elle tells her that doing it alone is unusual, and Anne doesn’t know what to say. Meanwhile,
Vladimir’s worried and keeps glancing back at them.
What Anne didn’t expect was that Elle already knows about the affair. She asks her how long
it’s been going on, and that it’s obvious they didn’t plan to meet up. She feels sorry
for Vladimir, because he’s really nervous about the whole situation. She compliments
Anne, says she’s nice and pretty, and that he has good taste. Elle says she gave him
permission to go ahead on their relationship if Anne would still like him. Anne’s speechless.
She has no idea what to say to her. Elle's determined to get an answer from her, though.
She questions if it’s the fact that he’s married that makes him so interesting to Anne.
Elle asks if Vladimir told Anne they don’t get intimate anymore. Vladimir has a big appetite
for intimacy and just has to do it, no matter if it’s not with her.
Anne never says a word during the whole conversation. She honestly doesn’t know what to say to
Elle . But what Elle says next, completely takes the ground off of Anne’s feet. She’s
not the only woman Vladimir’s having an affair with. She cannot believe it. Elle asks
if she’s in love with Vladimir, and instead of answering truthfully, she says she has
never seen Vladimir outside of school. Elle isn’t as patient as before, though. She
informs Anne that Vladimir’s never leaving her, because though they are different in
many ways, they have a bond. If they are apart, they call each other all the time. Despite
Vladimir being addicted to intimacy, they love each other. She ends the conversation
saying that she enjoyed talking to Anne, and wishes good luck to her.
Anne’s been completely blindsided by Elle. She cannot believe what she heard, and she
starts crying. It’s humiliating to go after a man that not only is married, but also has
lied to her face. Instead of going after the family, she continues with Patrick by herself.
When she meets them again, Elle takes Alice to pee and leaves Vladimir alone with Anne.
He tells her that he can’t stop thinking about their last night together, and Anne
questions if that’s all he cares about: intimacy. Then she moves on with her hike,
leaving Vladimir and his family behind. When she passes through Elle, she asks Anne
if she’s not having a picnic with them, and she pretends she doesn’t hear, then
mocks Elle. Anne starts venting to Patrick again, saying that for her, it wasn’t just
intimacy. Vladimir was tender with her. She wonders if he really is sleeping with other
women, as Elle implied. Unfortunately for her, the family manages to catch up with her,
and Anne starts running away from them. Vladimir’s family’s donkey starts running too, and
Patrick also runs away. He’s running so fast that Anne falls down and he drags her.
Vladimir goes after her to help her, and she asks him to leave her alone. She tells him
she doesn’t want to see him again. Vladimir doesn’t even fight her to try and change
her mind. He accepts what she says and goes after his family, leaving Anne behind. He
only makes a signal for her to call him, and that angers Anne even more. She blocks him
and starts crying again. Sadly, she twisted her ankle when she fell, and now she can’t
even walk right. She goes after Patrick with her bad ankle
and gets on his back to go back. She finds a small town, and people laugh at her when
they see her on a donkey. Anne doesn’t even care anymore, she just smiles and continues
her journey. She finally arrives at the next inn. A woman, Britney, helps her out because
of her bad ankle. She wants to go back to Paris, but there are no trains that night,
only the next day. A man called Fred approaches her and asks to see her ankle. He’s a vet.
When they introduce themselves, it becomes apparent that he already knew who she was.
Apparently, words traveled fast regarding her affair, and everyone knows who she is.
Fred asks her if she found Vladimir, and she replies that she found and lost him. Fred
offers her to come with him and his friends to the city to eat, because the inn doesn’t
offer any food. At night, she goes out with the people at the inn, on top of Patrick because
she can’t walk. During dinner, people tell her how brave she
was, and a guy named Sheriff sits next to her. He’s a mountain of a man, and looks
like an older, bigger James Dean. He’s interested in her, and even kisses her, but Anne’s
still shaken by what she discovered about Vladimir. Sheriff insists it’s only a kiss,
and ends up convincing her. They kiss once more, and after that, they smile and stay
silent. It’s not an awkward silence, though. It’s very comfortable.
Later on, when they go back to the inn, Anne is tipsy. Sheriff helps her out with Patrick
and even offers to give her a piggyback ride to her room. Instead of the piggyback ride,
he picks her up bridal style. Anne asks where she’s sleeping, and he says he’s alone
in his room. Then, he asks if she wants to go to his room, which she accepts.
Next day, Sheriff leaves with his bike and invites Anne to come with. She rejects him
and says she’s going back home. They say goodbye and he leaves. Anne is feeling better
than the day before, so she decides to take Patrick on a walk so he can graze. It’s
a beautiful place full of wild flowers and a stream. She’s there with him when a woman
appears on a black horse. She’s there to help Anne with her sprained ankle. Anne’s
confused but accepts the help. The woman starts talking to her to relax her, saying that she
helped deliver Patrick and that his mother passed away while giving birth. Finally, she
tells Anne she only needs to rest and that the next day she can leave. Before leaving,
the woman tells Anne she and Patrick have a strong chemistry and connection.
Moving on, Anne goes back to her hike with Patrick. It’s a peaceful hike, with no problems
with Patrick. When she gets to her last inn before she goes back home, she is happy. Besides
all the issues she had, she finds out that love exists, it just isn’t necessarily romantic.
She fell in love with Patrick. She goes to say goodbye to him and finds out he had already
left. She runs after him, and when she calls his name, he brays. When they see each other,
she kisses and hugs him. There’s a man with Patrick, Romain, and he’s also going on
a hike. Patrick balks again, so Anne helps Romain with him. She even gives him advice.
As they talk a bit, Romain asks if Anne has to work, and she says she doesn’t because
she’s on vacation. He invites her to stay, and Anne says she’ll stay until Patrick
gets used to him. In the end, Anne does the same path again,
this time though, in the company of a nice guy and Patrick.