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BY MIRIAM RINN
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
REVIEW
You'd think that directors would have gotten over their infatuation with the crisscrossing- storylines-that-converge trick by now, since we've seen so many since its introduction in Pulp Fiction.
But no, they can't get enough, and now we have that tired-but-not-retired plot design in a new French romantic dramedy, "Paris," with Juliette Binoche, Francois Cluzet, and Romain Duris.
Writer/director Cedric Klapisch tells the intersecting stories of Pierre, a young dancer who has just been diagnosed with potentially fatal heart disease; his social-worker sister Elise, a romantically challenged single mother; Roland, a middle-aged professor who is infatuated with a young student; Roland's brother Philippe, who is expecting his first child; Jean, a hunky fruit vendor, and many more, most of whom have little real or meaningful connection with each other.
The main plot focuses on Elise, played by Binoche, and Roland. As Roland, Romain Duris is thin and bearded, but never looks or acts sick enough to be on a heart-transplant list. His illness, though, gives him a reason to stay home and spy on the lovely young woman who lives across the courtyard, the same young woman who has besotted Roland.Fabrice Luchini drolly plays Roland as an anxiety-ridden, self-pitying intellectual, and his spontaneous dance to old American rock & roll gives the film its only jolt of humorous energy. The fact that he's a pretty good dancer makes that scene even funnier, for some reason.
A minor plot thread involves some African immigrants to France, one of whom is a client of Elise, and a bunch of wealthy Parisian women, whose only function in the film seems to be to give liberal viewers someone to despise. There is also an attempt to look at class distinctions through the story of the fruit vendor, his ex-wife, his blue-collar pals and the aforementioned fashionistas, but either this is handled so half-heartedly that it never goes anywhere, or there are subtleties that this subtitle-reading viewer missed.
Paris is not a bad film as much as it is a forgettable one. The performances are relatively good, with Binoche and Luchini as the standouts. The storytelling is passable, although we've seen the subject of globalization in Europe dealt with far more successfully in the German film The Edge of Heaven.
There's nothing new or particularly moving in the romantic couplings. Even the cinematography seems routine. For a movie that's titled Paris, we mostly get to see the interior of apartments and offices, with a lot of high-altitude shots that make Paris look like many other cities from a plane.
In fact, the most effective part of the film may its unintended endorsement of healthcare reform. In several scenes with Pierre and his doctor, Pierre is given the bad news that he's terribly sick and may need a transplant, but never does the doctor ask him what his insurance coverage is or how he's going to pay for the treatment.
