Marion is a French-born photographer living in New York City with her neurotic, hypochondriacal, chain-smoking, heavily tattooed American interior designer boyfriend Jack.

After a markedly unromantic trip to Venice, which was planned to re-ignite the passion in their relationship, they take a night train to Paris to pick up Marion's cat from her parents and decide to stay for two days.

Jack is startled to learn Marion has remained in contact with numerous ex-lovers and becomes increasingly uncomfortable due to the language barrier and a multitude of her old flames she keeps meeting.

"[4] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 67 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

[5] In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert called Julie Delpy "an original, a woman who refuses to be defined or limited" and said she "has made a smart film with an edge to it... What she has done here is avoid all temptation to recycle the usual lovers-in-Paris possibilities, and has created two original, quirky characters so obsessed with their differences that Paris is almost a distraction.

Comedian Chris Rock confirmed on The Howard Stern Show on 8 November 2010 that he was set to play the "new guy" in the film.