The movie starts with a view of the roads and streets of Paris. Jesse, our male lead character,
has written a best-seller book, and he was going to read it in a book store in France.
While he was having a discussion with the audience, we come to know that France is the
last stop of his book tour. He discusses that this book reflects the time when he met a French girl
on a train and spent the evening together. He was referring to the time he spent with Celeen, nine
years back. Jesse was talking about the idea of his upcoming book, when he looks across the window
to find Celeen staring at him. He bids farewell to his audience and reaches out to Celeen.
Both of them were happy yet surprised to meet each other after nine years.
After exchanging former greetings, Celeen and Jesse decides to go to a café for coffee,
on their way Celeen asks Jesse that if he came to Vienna after six months of their first meeting,
to which Jesse replied that he didn’t. Celeen takes a sigh of relief as she was also not able
to come to Vienna as her grandmother died that day. Celeen asks Jesse’s reason of not showing
up but he didn’t say anything. Turns out, that Jesse actually went to Vienna, but he doesn’t want
Celeen to feel guilty about this whole thing. Both of them were feeling that it was not a good
idea to not to exchange numbers or addresses. They didn’t even know each other’s last names.
Celeen tells him more about herself. She tells him that she is working for green-cross. This is
an environmental organization that addresses different environmental issues like water
contamination, use of chemical weapons etc. They reached a small café where they seated
comfortably and ordered coffee; Jesse likes that place and wishes to have cafes like this in
America. That’s when Celeen brings up that she was living in America from 1996 to 1999 on a student
visa as she was studying in New York University. Jesse regrets lack of communication between them,
as he was also living in New York at that time. If they had been in touch they would have ended
up being with one another. Anyhow, Celeen tells him that after completing her master’s
degree she came back to France. Celeen was quite disturbed by all the violence,
murders and serial killers on media reports. As she tells Jesse the incident where, upon hearing
some noises at the fire escape, she called 911 for help but the cops made her feel more insecure,
that’s when she decided to go back to France. Celeen tells Jesse about her trip to Warsaw,
Eastern Europe, when it was a strict communist regime there. She stayed there for two weeks but
those two weeks felt like the most peaceful and soulful time to her, away from her regular habits,
away from all the hustle and bustle she only spent her time walking around and thinking
about all the perspectives of life. Jesse picks up Vienna’s talk again,
reminding Celeen that it’s been nine years. Celeen asks about any difference in her
physical appearance that Jesse has noticed. Jesse tells her that he is more familiar with
her open hair. Jesse also jokes about her being much thinner and skinnier before.
They both were of the view that getting older is better for them,
as now they can appreciate the happy moments. Jesse tells Celeen about being a drummer in a
band where all the band members had fun but they always talk about getting bigger shows,
their lead singer was trying to get record deal for their band, but now that band didn’t exist
anymore. Celeen lights a cigarette while listening to Jesse, he asks for a cigarette for himself too.
Celeen picks up the discussion and continues with her experience, she has also noticed that
people in her field hop in with big revolutionary ideas and all, but they just focus on the goal,
not on the process. Small achievements in the whole process give real joy, as sometimes small
gestures counts rather than big revolutionary ideas. She shares an example of a village in
Mexico, where she was working in an organization, where people were concerned about getting pencils
for children. It wasn’t about innovations or big ideas, it was about small achievements.
Celeen mentions her nature of being dissatisfied all the time. According to her she always looks
for the betterment and her desires never tend to end. Jesse responds that desire is the fuel of
life, and not having desires at all is a symptom of depression. He further tells Celeen that it’s
ok to desire as it is healthy. Fulfillment of wants and desires give happiness and a sense
of entitlement, but it should not affect the mind negatively if desires are not fulfilled,
as life is supposed to be hard and from the sufferings, we learn.
Celeen discusses her very private belief systems with Jesse. She tells him that she does not follow
any one belief system, to which Jesse shares his close experience with monks at Trappist
Monastery where he has closely observed them, as he was expecting them to be very stern and
strict they appeared completely opposite to his expectations. They were very easy-to-go people,
living in peace and harmony without any hassle. Living around monks was a refreshing experience
for Jesse, as they are content with their lives unlike other people running around for more
money or position or opportunities etc. Celeen tells an interesting story about her
encounter with monks. Her ex-boyfriend wanted to be a Buddhist so he wanted to go to Asia for this
purpose. Celeen went along him. Each time when he went to monasteries, a monk, maybe influenced
by ex-boyfriend’s good looks, offered to satisfy his physical pleasure needs.
As Jesse was about to fly away from her, he wanted to spend a little more time with Celeen. He asks
her to show him around as they walk. Celeen suggests going to the garden path for a walk.
As they were strolling, Jesse asked her about the night referring to the moment when they made love
with each other. Surprisingly, Celeen didn’t remember that they made out nine years ago.
Jesse helped her recall by telling her that they made love in a park,
late at night. He even remembered the brand name of the precaution that they used that night. He
was dumbfounded as Celeen didn’t remember any of the happenings of them being close. Celeen started
recalling a little bit, and explains to Jesse that her mind is trained to shut painful memories away,
so that they won’t hurt her. Time spent with Jesse was not painful itself, but it drags her mind to
the time of her grandmother’s funeral, as it was the same day when they were supposed to meet
again. She talks more about her wretched emotions when she saw her grandmother in the coffin, where
her hands were not as warm and comfy as they used to be. Celeen remembers crying her eyes out, at
the funeral, because of not being able to see her grandmother again, and also because she thought
she would never be able to see Jesse again. But as they were together again, they wanted
to re-write their memory not as the previous sad ending of never seeing
each other again. Jesse says that memories don’t end until characters are alive, they
can always re-liv and amend their memories. Celeen shares that she is accustomed to write
journals from a very young age. Lately she read one of her 21 year old journal, and she realized
that she has not changed much. Her thought process is still the same. Jesse tells her about a study
conducted on some people who won lottery tickets, and some people, who became handicapped because
of something, one group was extremely ecstatic where as other group was depressed to the core;
in a period of six months this periodic mood was vanished from both of the groups,
and their permanent mood or nature came into play showing that jolly people will remain jolly,
no matter what happens in their lives, grouchy people will stay grouchy.
As both of them walks down the garden path to the streets of Paris, Celeen tells that
she has a feeling that she will die before fulfilling her desires to learn Chinese,
to paint, and to write songs etc. Celeen asks Jesse dramatically, if it’s
the last day for both of them to be alive then what would he like to talk about. Jesse responded
that he wouldn’t talk about his book of course. Jesse showed his desire to take Celeen to bed,
which she dodged beautifully. They slightly touch the topic of
their romantic desires. Jesse asks Celeen to Sing songs that she has composed,
but she makes excuses as she was not carrying her guitar, Celeen reminds him that he has a flight
to catch and drags him out of there. As they walk along side of river Seine,
Jesse tells Celeen about his wife, who is an elementary teacher. He also has a four year
old son Henry. Celeen also shares that she has a boyfriend, who is a photo-journalist
and he is away most of the time. Jesse convinces Celeen for a boat
ride in river Seine. He also calls his driver to pick them up from the
next stop as his flight is about to take off. Celeen was enjoying the boat ride for the first
time, while Jesse was looking around at land marks. Jesse tells Celeen that he wrote that
book as an attempt to find Celeen. Celeen tells him that she never recovers from breaking up
with someone, as there is always some part of each person’s personality that is distinct from others,
and she being someone who always notices small things, misses those characteristics. As their
boat ride is coming to end, Jesse tells Celeen about his unhappy marriage. He says that his
wife is a good teacher, good mom but they haven’t come closer in 4 years. Celeen tries
to explain that to expect same passion as before, especially after having kids is not realistic.
As they get off from the boat, they see Jesse's driver standing there to receive Jesse. Jesse
offers Celeen a ride to her place. While in the car Celeen and Jesse got into a bit heated
argument over the news of Jesse being married. Apparently Celeen wasn’t ready to cope with that
news. Jesse tells her more about his marriage that they are just together for the sake of their son,
and nor he is happy neither his wife. Upon reaching Celeen’s place, Jesse asks for a
song again, to which she invites him upstairs to her apartment to sing a song to him. The
ending was pretty much unclear that whether he stayed there or went to airport afterwards.