The film intercuts the stories of two affairs. One is a Victorian period drama involving the gentleman Paleontology Charles Smithson and the complex and troubled Sarah Woodruff, known as "the French lieutenant's woman." The other story is between actors Mike and Anna, playing the lead roles in a modern filming of the story. In both segments, Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep play the lead roles. John Fowles's ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' had multiple endings, and the two parallel stories in the movie have different outcomes.