Plot: Pasadena-based Gil Pender would rather be a novelist than the hack--albeit successful screenwriter--that he is. A romantic at heart, Gil has little in common with his fiancée Inez or her wealthy conservative parents--she is much like them--whom Gil and Inez are with in Paris, accompanying them on her father's extended business trip. Gil, against Inez's sensibilities, would love to live in Paris so that he could write his novel full time, that novel which is a fantasy of his own life, complete in wanting to live in what he considers the golden era, 1920s Paris. Gil also has little in common with Inez's friends, most specifically Paul and Carol Bates--professor Paul, who Gil believes is pedantic as someone who spouts off everything about anything, but who Inez believes is brilliant. One evening while Inez ditches Gil for an evening out with Paul, Gil gets picked up by a group of party-goers in a 1920s vintage vehicle, who invite him along to their party. At the party, Gil meets a couple named Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, their names which he initially believes is coincidence. He quickly comes to the realization that he has been transported back to 1920s Paris and the two are indeed the couple famed in literature. On subsequent evenings, Gil comes to the realization that he can travel back to this, his dream setting, at midnight every night at that exact location transported by that 1920s vehicle. Subsequently, he meets and befriends the elite of Paris arts and culture of the time, including Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dalí. Gil initially plans to share this revelation with Inez, until he meets Adriana, a muse of Picasso's. There is a seeming mutual attraction between Adriana and Gil. Although he would love for his midnight trips to last forever, his time especially with Adriana shows Gil what he truly is striving for in his present twenty-first century life.
Alternative Plot: Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a screenwriter and aspiring novelist. Vacationing in Paris with his fiancee (Rachel McAdams), he has taken to touring the city alone. On one such late-night excursion, Gil encounters a group of strange -- yet familiar -- revelers, who sweep him along, apparently back in time, for a night with some of the Jazz Age's icons of art and literature. The more time Gil spends with these cultural heroes of the past, the more dissatisfied he becomes with the present.
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