29 recommendations

Paris

Editorial Review

Paris opens with a pov from atop the Eiffel Tower – as postcard cliché as it gets – but it's a red herring in a film that expends much time and energy in presenting a city in a state of flux, as old and new wage the eternal struggle that defines a modern metropolis. The gaze belongs to a historian who laments the passing of ancient Paris; a man who, ironically, later has an affair with a beautiful young student he stalks via text messaging.

Cédric Klapisch's multi-ethnic social tableau has a lot that it wants to say, and taken on their individual merits the storylines are worthwhile, both busting tired preconceptions of the City of Romance and hinting at some things that will never change. Too often, however, it succumbs to the modern trap of the interweaving, coincidental narrative, which overstacks the character deck at the expense of the finer moments. He's fortunate to have great performances and in particular Romain Duris, whose bond with Binoche and soulful presence finally form an affecting comment on a disparate city, one in which parallel lives are separated by little more than a (screenwriter's) twist of fate.

Luke Goodsell