The film has been described as "a love letter to journalists set at an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th-century French city", centering on three stories. It brings to life a collection of tales published in the eponymous "The French Dispatch", based in the fictional French city of Ennui-sur-Blasé. The film is inspired by Anderson's love of "The New Yorker", and some characters and events in the film are based on real-life equivalents from the magazine. One of the three stories centers on the May 68 student occupation protests, inspired by Mavis Gallant's two-part article "The Events in May: A Paris Notebook". Another story, featuring Adrien Brody's character of Julien Cadazio, is based on "The Days of Duveen", a six-part feature in "The New Yorker" on art dealer Lord Duveen.