Romance is crude, pretentious, repugnant, sad and dull. I could not recommend this film to anyone, on either moral and artistic grounds. However, there were certain features of the context of these depictions, as I will explain, that made them different in character even to some less technically revealing M and MA-rates films.
Romance is a deliberately ironic title.
Director Catherine Breillat narrates the sexual odyssey of Marie, a young school teacher. Marie is in love with the narcissistic Paul, but he is sexually cold. As a result, she leaves his bed and seeks satisfaction in bold sexual experimentation with a variety of partners. The men Marie meets are her biggest problem - though she desires them, they are almost all twisted in some way. Her sequence of experiences lead to a devastating rape at the hands of a casual lover.