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Paris review
:. Director: Cédric Klapisch
:. Starring: Romain Duris, Juliette Binoche
:. Running Time: 2:10
:. Year: 2008
:. Country: France
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There is one crucial moment in Paris that defines Cédric Klapisch's new work. A middle-aged history professor (Fabrice Luchini — Molière, Perceval le Gallois) asks the female student he's been having an affair with if she doesn't think their little fling is kind of a cliché. Sitting on his lap, the beautiful girl replies that it is why she likes it.
It's hard not to think that during this brief intimate moment the filmmaker isn't confiding in us through these characters, as this movie so blatantly breaks out from his emblematic body of work both in terms of theme and originality.
Using Romain Duris's character as its narrative center, Mr. Klapisch has built a choral film filled with familiar faces around him. From a terminally-sick dancer (Romain Duris — L'auberge Espagnole, Molière) to a discouraged social worker (Juliette Binoche), an African immigrant, a racist baker (Karin Viard), a vapid rich girl, a self-absorbed historian/teacher, a flirty student, a successful architect (Francois Cluzet) and a nice greengrocer (Albert Dupontel), the filmmaker tries to show us how life in Paris isn't as picture-perfect as its touristy postcard image.
The problem, if you're familiar with French cinema, is that you've seen these kinds of Parisian characters a million times, which turns this film into a clichéd social commentary piece.
With so many characters and storylines, Mr. Klapisch doesn't have the time to offer anything else than a series of superficial portraits; maybe it's because he's too busy drafting love stories that strongly smell of patchouli which, you probably guessed, veer into silly Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman, And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen) territories. Not even the actors seem to believe in their characters; most of them force their tears, except maybe for Ms. Binoche (Caché, Jet Lag) who here, through improvisation, offers a heartfelt performance that contrasts with her usually well-calculated acts.
Maybe, in a true Romanesque fashion, Paris is one those cursed characters that cannot be portrayed directly in films — last year's I Love Paris was another big failure. Maybe it's because Mr. Klapisch, one of France's best cinematic painters of modern youth, ventured in a subgenre too serious for his own good. Or maybe it's because Mr. Klapisch is trying too hard to become a popular filmmaker, despite his younger and original artistic nature. That artistic nature is the one thing we surely want from the witty director of Un Air de Famille, L'auberge Espagnole, Le Peril Jeune & When The Cat's Away back, rather than another incarnation of Claude Lelouch.
Fred Thom
 Reviews of French Movies: 2012 - present
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