An innovative study of an intense mother-child relationship, The Affair stars Mariko Okada as a woman struggling to leave the shadow of her sexually frank mother, a widow who openly flaunts her affairs with younger men. Trapped in a loveless relationship with her frigid husband, the woman gradually empowers herself to break the reactionary pattern caused by her overbearing mother by exploring relationships with two radically different men. The Affair makes notable use of documentary style flourishes—hand-held widescreen camerawork, natural lighting and naturalistic mise-en-scène—that intensify the shifting dynamic captured between the woman and the triangle of men she must decide between.