As the name of the film suggests, the action takes place in the capital of France, Paris, and it follows Gil, a man who feels he is at a crossroads, unable to decide what he wants to do with his life. From the outside, it appears Gil has a perfect life: he is engaged to a beautiful woman, he is wealthy and he is a famous screenwriter in Hollywood. Despite this, Gil is unable to find happiness in his work and is in the process of completing his first novel.
Gil is criticized by his soon-to-be wife because he is thinking about giving up his job in order to finish his novel. They are also constantly fighting because Gil is trying to convince Inez to move permanently to Paris while she wants them to move to Miami after they get married. Inez's parents also criticize Gil and he is unable to find happiness no matter what he does.
One night, Gil returns alone to the hotel where he and Inez where staying while his fiance went dancing with a few of their friends. It is almost midnight and after wandering through the narrow streets of the city, Gil realizes he is lost. At midnight, Gil hears a distant clock going off while at the same time a vintage car pulls right beside him. From the car emerge people dressed in a weird way, with cloths characteristic of the 1920s. Gil is invited by the strange people to join them and he enters a nearby bar.
Once inside the bar, Gil realizes for the first time he was transported in the past. There, he meets F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, two writers who inspired Gil to begin writing as well. Gil is excited to show the two men his manuscript and rushes to the hotel to fetch it. Still, when he exists the bar he finds himself back in the present time.
The next day, Gil is excited to tell Inez what he experienced the night before but she is not interested. When Gil takes Inez to the bar and insists they wait together, Inezsoon gets bored and returns to the hotel. Interestingly, as soon as Inez leaves, Hemingway appears in a car to take Gil to meet Gertrude Stein. This is an important scene and one which transmits the idea that Inez was not worthy of meeting those influential writers. What the movie may transmit is the idea that not everyone has the capacity or the willingness to truly grasp wonderful works of art and because of this, the truth will always elude them.
Gil is taken to meet Gertrude Stein and he also gets the chance to meet with Pablo Picasso and his partner, Adriana. Up until this point, the people Gil met were other writers he admired. The appearance of Picasso and his muse, however, changes the tone of the story and foreshadows the need Gil will feel to be inspired by another person.
Inez continues to remain uninterested in the topics Gil wanted to talk about and this only drives the two further apart. From that point on, Inez spends her time with Paul and his partner while Gil takes to wandering the streets of Paris and then spending the night talking with outstanding writers and painters from the past. Gil quickly falls in love with Adriana who appears to be attracted to him as well but he tries to deny his attraction pushed by a desire to remain faithful to Inez.
Another important moment in the film is when Gil meets Gabrielle, a woman selling antiques. In this context, Gil is accompanied by Inez but she is put into the background as Gil connects on an intellectual level with the woman he met by chance in a flee market. That very night, Gil meets with Adriana bent on giving in to his desire for her. They travel back in time even more and when Adriana is offered the change to remain there, she accepts. Gil, on the other hand, is conflicted. He is tempted by the idea of remaining back in time, during an age that he worshiped and surrounded by literary geniuses. Still, as the night goes on, Gil decides to return to his own era. The main idea transmitted through this is the importance of the present. Even if living in the past gave Gil the happiness he desired, he knew it is always better to live in the present, no matter how hard it is.
Gil returns to the present where he meets with Gertrude one more time. She read the manuscript Gil gave her and before taking her to leave, suggests the idea that Inez was cheating on him. Gil is reluctant to accept this idea at first but he realizes it is a possibility he simply refused to believe. When Inez admits she was unfaithful, Gil breaks the engagement and refuses to give her another chance. He also decides to remain in Paris alone, while Inez returns to the United States.
The last scene in the movie takes place a little while after Gil settled down in Paris. He continues to wander the streets at night, hoping he will meet the writers again but no matter how hard he tries, the door to the past remains closed. During one of these walks, Gil encounters Gabrielle and he offers to walk her home. While the film ends at this point, it is implied the two most likely found a relationship.
The time when Gil met again with Gabrielle is also important because it is the same time the door to the past would usually open. This may suggest that what was missing from Gil's life was a muse and someone who understood him and that the only reason why he was able to travel back in time was to understand and figure out what he really wanted from life. Once he decided to follow his own path no matter who stood against him, there was no longer a need for him to receive advice from the past. What he got instead was a woman who understood him and who was bound to remain by his side no matter what.
