'Round Midnight

Is inspired by the lives of Bud Powell and Francis Paudras, here renamed Dale Turner and Francis Borier, respectively, and their real life encounter with each other. It's 1959. Turner is a renowned Harlem-based jazz tenor saxophonist who decides to move to Paris to escape his demons. In Paris, he spends time either at: the Blue Note, the club where he fronts a jazz ensemble; his apartment, his care there which is overseen by Buttercup, a pseudo-mother figure; one bar or another as he tries to sponge drinks off of anyone, that drinking which will eventually kill him; or a hospital drying out. He meets Borier, a divorced graphic artist who is struggling to make ends meet. He has custody of his preteen daughter Berangere, that decision as much what is best for her as it is for her parents, Borier who would be lost in life without her. As he finds Turner's music his primary inspiration in life and in the hope that Turner will resume composing, Borier decides to "save" him by taking over his care, which means Turner moving in with him and Berangere, which further means finding a larger apartment for which he does not have the money on his own, and trying to ensure that Turner doesn't indulge in any of his vices, which is not only alcohol but also illicit drugs.