The enduring icon of the City of Love, the Eiffel Tower, gets an origin story in this fictionalised romantic drama, starring Romain Duris (The Spanish Apartment trilogy) and Emma Mackey (Death on the Nile, Netflix’s Sex Education).

Civil engineer Gustave Eiffel (Duris), having just completed a collaboration resulting in the Statue of Liberty, is at a professional high. When the French government requests that he create something spectacular for the 1889 Exposition Universelle world’s fair, he finds himself more interested in the Paris subway project. That is, until a lost love from his past (Mackay) re-enters his life.

Their secret affair inspires Gustave to create a structure many believed impossible to realise, but now stands as one of world’s most recognisable cultural icons.

Literally born for the role, the inimitable Nicolas Cage plays a fictionalised version of himself named ‘Nick Cage’, whose career choices of late have left him feeling creatively unfulfilled and facing financial ruin. So when his agent (Neil Patrick Harris) calls with a $1 million offer, it’s not for a movie, but rather to make an appearance at a billionaire super fan’s (Pedro Pascal) birthday party.

There may be more going on than meets the eye, however, when two CIA agents (Tiffany Haddish, Ike Barinholtz) call on Cage to spy on his genial host, who could be a ruthless arms dealer. It’s not long before Cage is embroiled in shenanigans that could be straight out of a, well, Nicolas Cage movie.

Regardless of what you think of the man himself, this meta-action-comedy is a surprisingly thoughtful ode to the magic of movies – and the transcendent, multi-faceted movie star that is Nicolas Cage.