Paris

The movie Paris teaches us an important lesson in the life of the everyday Frenchman: contrary to what we might think from afar, it is perfectly reasonable to live in an apartment large enough to house you, your sister and her children all comfortably on the top floor of the building with a balcony and a beautiful view of downtown Paris in which you live all without working and in fact being quite ill. As if you needed to be told, I have friends living in Paris who would be happy to confirm that this is complete nonsense and thus Paris has broken a cardinal rule of realism in my book, that of respecting reality when attempting to be ‘realistic’. Seriously, go watch the trailer and check out the view from this guy’s apartment, I’ll wait… … you see! Tell me that you can take that seriously. Paris is by no means the first film to be so absurd with the treatment of living conditions, the good Lord knows Woody Allen seems convinced that everyone can afford to live in New York regardless of what job they have (see Anything Else if you don’t believe me) and Paris certainly won’t be the last film to do so in something that might be defined at the Friends syndrome.

Seeing as the central character of Paris is guilty of this crime against realism I was already predisposed to being disappointed with a film that proclaimed to be the film about the ‘city of a thousand tales’ and I was prepared for the entire movie to annoy me with little illogical inconsistencies and they are indeed abound, though to what extent this will annoy you depends on what kind of person you are. Now I can see the appeal of this kind of story telling, especially if one likes to romanticize far off cities of Europe and fantasize what it would be like to live in one and perhaps in this way the film works- after all, there is nothing wrong with a slightly embellished coup de vie including tales of love and friendship as a sort of delicious icing over the already tantalizing cake of romantic France. If, however you have ever been to the city or know anything about its culture, it is much more likely that you will find the film to be little more than another exercise in the French attempt to solidify the exclusively Parisian belief that Paris is indeed the center of the entire universe.

It isn’t so much that I didn’t like the film as much as it is that it simply bored me; the dialogue is forgettable, the attempt to underline ‘life in Paris’ as some kind of social studies project is predictable and uninteresting and the characters are bland, barely cracking the second dimension which I suppose is a compliment because I am talking about the ones I liked. Every time Mélanie Laurent is on screen I want to shove popcorn into my eyes and ears to ensure a total blackout of sight and sound lest I be forced to ask myself why a university professor would run about madly in love with her and yes, I am not an idiot, I get it: he is in love with the idea of being young not the girl herself but that’s not an excuse for her being the most annoying character in the film. And I take personal issue with Laurent ruining that part of the story because it was for some reason or another the only one which seemed to keep my attention and make me want to see the film to the end because I like Fabrice Luchini and I wanted to see how things would pan out for him.

For what it is worth, this is the one point which I will give to Paris and it is that it succeeds in keeping everyone’s attention exactly because it spreads out its longer-than-welcome two hours and ten minutes over a number of stories within which even I will admit there is something for everyone that can at least keep them in their seat. Ultimately, however, Paris falls short of any real praise because it is quick, forgettable and quite uninspiring with an ending that I think was supposed to be a cliffhanger leaving us to wonder what ultimately happened to our hero. Who knows? Who cares? You can play all the Coldplay tracks you want in the trailer, it still doesn’t move me.

If you want a cute and heartwarming group of stories in a semi-realistic Paris to go with your steak and chips, go rent Amélie.