Synopsis

A celebrated French novelist returns to Paris after learning that her childhood home is being auctioned. The journey forces her to confront painful memories of wartime separation, her mother's fate, and the emotional distance she created during a successful life in America. As past and present begin to converge, she finds an unexpected chance to reclaim her history and reconnect with the city she left behind.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film was conceived specifically as a vehicle for Jeanne Moreau. Ismail Merchant first imagined her playing a French writer before a complete story had been developed.

• Merchant Ivory Productions describes the film as a personal valentine to cinema and Paris, incorporating references and homages to earlier movies.

• The story was written as an original screenplay rather than adapted from a novel or short story.

• The film served as an homage to Francois Truffaut, who had directed Moreau in "Jules et Jim."

• A scene set at the Trianon Palace Hotel was secured through one of Merchant's characteristically theatrical maneuvers: he reportedly presented himself as an Indian maharaja in order to obtain the desired location.

• Production overlapped with "Surviving Picasso." Both films required scenes at Paris' Place de la Concorde, allowing the filmmakers to shoot material for the two projects during the same period.