Gil is a Californian hack who churns out screenplays but dreams of writing a novel. He and his fiancée Inez have come to Paris to sigh dreamily as they wander its boulevards and the banks of the Seine. The trouble is that Inez's Tea Party-supporting parents are with them. Another problem is that Inez prefers to spend her time in the company of her college crush Paul, a pompous visiting academic who's in town to deliver a lecture at the Sorbonne.