Alexander Meyerheim, Noël Coward, hires veteran playboy screenwriter Richard Benson, William Holden, to craft a screenplay in just two days, aiming to finish a 138-page script that will buoy Meyerheim’s project and the restless energy of the era's cinema.
Gabrielle Simpson, Audrey Hepburn, a temp secretary Benson hired to type the mostly unwritten pages, arrives at his hotel room to find the manuscript far thinner than promised. Richard explains the tight deadline—Meyerheim will be in Paris by Sunday morning, leaving them two days to sculpt a screenplay that could satisfy a tough producer and the public’s appetite for glamorous, bite-sized spectacle. From that moment, Gabrielle and Richard begin to weave a story together, their collaboration birthing not just pages but a shared impulse to coax life out of a floundering career.
In their improvised sessions, they imagine a film within a film, The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower, a project whose romance grows in parallel with their own evolving feelings. Gabrielle vacillates between seeing Richard as a man of charm and promise and noticing the rough edges of a man who labels himself a “liar and a thief” for having taken Meyerheim’s money without delivering the script sooner. The dynamic between writer and muse becomes the heartbeat of the project, turning their sessions into a playful, reflective spoof of the movie industry itself.
The screenplay they craft includes small but sparkling cameos that wink at the era’s stars, including Noël Coward and Tony Curtis, among others, and it teases the prestige world of cinema with sly humor about actors, studio heads, and the self-importance of fame. The work also nods to the careers of stars of the time, weaving in allusions to the earlier film roles of Hepburn and Holden, a meta-textual thread that keeps the project both affectionate and knowing.
As the story within the story reaches its apex, Richard reveals a bleak truth about his own life—an old, washed-up alcoholic who believes he doesn’t deserve love or a happy ending. He confesses that his best days as a creator may be behind him and that he intends to keep chasing evasive thrills rather than honest artistry. He sends Gabrielle away, consumed by doubt and self-doubt, and sinks into a drunken sleep, seemingly surrendering to the life he has inhabited for years.
Yet fate nudges him back: gradually, Richard comes to his senses. He seeks out Gabrielle to declare his love and to insist that they have a fresh script to write together. The pair decide to run off together, symbolically casting aside the failed pages of the old script as they watch Bastille Day fireworks crackle and shower the night with sparks. In the final, cinematic moment, the lovers share a kiss, and the screen lingers on their embrace as the words “kiss” and “fade out” appear, sealing their new beginning with a hopeful, unresolved glow.
