Director: Cedric Klapisch
“Paris”, the latest effort by French writer-director Cedric Klapisch, is an almost shamelessly breezy work. It’s characters coast in and out through the lush Parisian visuals and by the end of the film you’re struggling to figure out what the point of it all was. That being said, however, meandering or not – the people on screen are simply pleasant to spend time with. We may not get entirely satisfactory conclusions, and a few of the minor characters are given so little time that they serve only as distractions, but watching the story unfold is nevertheless welcoming.
Pierre (Romain Duris), a professional dancer in his 30′s, has been diagnosed with a severe heart defect. He will be dead within a year without a heart transplant, and even with the surgery he only has a 40% survival rate. His older sister, Elise (Juliette Binoche), decides to move into his apartment with her kids in order to take care of him. It’s a fitting job for Elise – she makes her living as a social worker.
Spending what he believes to be his last days peering through his window, Pierre spots a gorgeous student, Laetitia (Mélanie Laurent, from “Inglourious Basterds”), in an adjacent apartment complex. Another man, her 50-something professor, Roland (Fabrice Luchini), has also had his eye on her – he’s been sending her highly erotic text messages and watching her respond to them from a cafe across the street. His younger brother is Philippe (François Cluzet, the Dustin Hoffman dead ringer from “Tell No One”), who doesn’t understand Roland’s sadness.
There are a handful of characters i’ve neglected to mention – not only for space restraints, but because they’re used sparingly throughout the film. Klapisch’s screen is simply too crowded to care for them all – the audience isn’t given enough time to get to know each face.
What makes “Paris” so entertaining is not just the gorgeous city, but the terrific cast. Fabrice Luchini, playing a self-admitted cliche, is marvelous – excelling in both the film’s darkest moments and delivering the biggest laughs.
Although “Paris” can’t figure out what to do with all of it’s narrative threads, I found it to be a perfect cinematic comfort food. It’s enormously charming and involving – a beautifully acted, if uneven, effort.
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