Christian [Ewan McGregor] a young writer with a magical gift for poetry defies his bourgeois father by moving to the bohemian underworld of Montmartre Paris. He is taken in by the absinthe- soaked artist Toulouse- Lautrec whose party- hard life centres around the Moulin Rouge a world of sex drugs electricity & the shocking Can-Can. Christian falls into a passionate but ultimately doomed love affair with Satine the Sparkling Diamond [Nicole Kidman] the most beautiful courtesan