Ada (Helen Bonham Carter) is an English fashion designer living a vaguely dissatisfied life with screenwriter Paul in a new home which is a bit above their means. Guido Paul's writing partner is having relationship problems of his own with Stephanie. And Guido and Paul are seriously late in delivering their script to Alphonse a young director with diminishing patience. Into this comes Lise an up and coming fashion designer who derails Ada's career by snagging a major assignment and making romantic advances at Paul. The lives loves deceptions triumphs and tragedies of this circle of self-absorbed over-achieving Parisians becomes more confusing convoluted and entangled leading to a surprising finale that blurs fiction and reality in a very Woody Allen way.