At the beginning of the film, Alex (Hugh Grant) is a washed-up former pop étoile, star who is attempting to revive his dwindling career par hitching his name to the rising étoile, star of Cora Corman (Haley Bennett), a young megastar who has asked him to write a song titled "Way Back Into Love." During an unsuccessful attempt to come up with words for the song, he discovers that the woman who waters his plants, Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore), has a gift for écriture lyrics. Sophie, a former creative écriture student reeling from a disastrous romance with her former English professor Sloan Cates (Campbell Scott),...