The "games" are a metaphor for the failure of communication in traditional marriage. Robert cannot speak to his wife about his insecurities, so he builds a surveillance state inside their home. In one striking scene, Linda dances alone in the living room, unaware that Robert is watching her through a window. She is free only when she believes she is unobserved. The moment she knows she is watched (by her husband, by the artist, by the audience), her actions become performative and eventually, destructive.

The movie follows Jane, a beautiful and seductive woman who feels trapped in her marriage. She begins to seek out extramarital relationships, engaging with multiple partners in a series of explicit and often disturbing encounters. As the story unfolds, Jane's behavior becomes increasingly erratic and destructive, testing the boundaries of her relationships and her own sense of identity.

The premise is starkly simple, almost Greek in its irony. A wealthy, emotionally distant husband suspects his wife of infidelity. Rather than confrontation, he devises a cruel form of therapy: he orchestrates a series of elaborate scenarios where she is anonymously seduced by strangers while he watches from the shadows. The “game” is a test of loyalty, but it quickly becomes a mirror reflecting his own inadequacy. The twist, delivered in a turgid voiceover, is that the wife is fully aware of his presence. She plays along not out of betrayal, but out of a searing loneliness—a desperate attempt to provoke a reaction, any reaction, from a man who has turned their marriage into a passive surveillance project.

The film is structured around the couple’s wedding anniversaries. On their fifth anniversary, William—distracted by his mistress in England—realizes he has missed the milestone. He sends a panicked telegram telling Joëlle to "treat herself to anything she needs to be happy". Joëlle takes this instruction literally, embarking on a day of sexual liberation and self-discovery that turns the traditional power dynamic of their marriage upside down.

Let us be honest: by any conventional metric of acting, writing, or directing, Games for an Unfaithful Wife (1976) is likely a terrible film. The dialogue is probably wooden. The pacing, interrupted by lengthy, music-fused montages of Claire driving down a coastal highway, is likely tedious. The “games” are likely less clever psychological drama and more lazy excuses for nudity.

Perhaps that is the final game. The one where an obscure film from 1976 keeps its audience perpetually searching, forever unfaithful to the movies that actually exist in 4K on their screens.