In order that you have a basic idea of what you're getting into while not revealing too much of the story, here is a short plot outline. Isabelle Hubert plays Professor Erika Kohut, a Schubert loving piano teacher. She is a cold and distant woman in her 40's who lives with her mother. She is as mean and demanding of her students, as is her mother of her. Everything seems pretty normal at first, but then hints about Erika's true nature are slowly revealed. One day after work, we see her walk into a porn store and head into one of the booths to just sit and watch movies. From her emotionless face, it's hard to tell if she's even enjoying it or what is the pleasure she derives from it, but things slowly start to come together as more of her non-piano-teaching activities are revealed. After one of her recitals a young stud in the audience falls in love with her. He wants to be with her, but she has things she wants to do about which he hasn't a clue. They'll probably shock you as much as they do him when he finds out.

Unlike the Film Secretary, that uses S&M as a centerpiece to an otherwise real and true love story, The Piano Teacher tries to delve into the cause and effect of Erika's sexual perversity. Hubert gives a brilliant performance. It might seem easy to act cold and detached, but there is so much more going on inside the role. Hubert skillfully straddles that fine line between her seeming absurdly stoic on the outside while being emotionally, raw and vulnerable just below the surface. Director Michael Haneke weaves a slow-paced and somewhat disturbing path through the tormented and confused life in the mind of a piano teacher who desperately wants to feel something, the only way she knows how. The film won the Grand Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001 and both Hubert and her male counterpart won acting awards, all deservedly so.