Philadelphia Weekly

Out of all the art-house clichés that need to be retired, we should first put to rest the sprawling multi-character narrative in which a large cast of casual acquaintances suffer bite-sized, thematically similar crises in harmony, while the audience is invited to muse on the profound inter-connectedness of this whole crazy “life” business. Robert Altman is dead, and his rich, densely layered tapestries prove even more inimitable with every repeat viewing and passing year. Can’t we all finally agree to stop ripping him off and just let the poor bastard rest in peace?

Cedric Klapisch’s Paris presents a breezy, lightweight cityscape of shockingly little urgency, where even life-and-death matters are met with a shrug. Roman Duris stars as Pierre, a sad-sack former dancer diagnosed with a probably fatal heart disease. Despondent, he watches denizens of his beloved city pass by from his balcony, offering writer-director Klapisch plenty of convenient opportunities to hop from one under-realized storyline to another, depending on whomever happens to be walking down the street.

The most amusing material goes to Fabrice Luchini’s Professor Verneuil, a tweedy history expert sent reeling into mid-life crisis mode by the recent passing of his father, which he obviously hasn’t metabolized just quite yet. Verneuil’s landed a plum television job, in which he is allowed free reign to pontificate at great length about every last fact nestled in his giant brain, yet for some reason the batty fellow seems hell-bent on sabotaging this career opportunity, throwing himself into frivolity with reckless abandon.

Most of his time is spent sending weird text-messages to his most beautiful student, played by Inglorious Basterds’ avenging cipher Melanie Laurent. First he tries to ape contemporary lingo (“I’m 2 Hot 4 U”) before eventually lapsing into epic, multi-message recitations of Baudelaire poetry. This unique seduction strategy ends up somewhere that is both completely unexpected and entirely unbelievable.

Meanwhile, Duris’ harried, single-mom sister (Juliette Binoche) brings her kids to live in his apartment, trying to help her sickly brother through his illness and bridge the obvious distance in their relationship. These two siblings don’t seem to communicate very well. He laments loves lost, a life wasted, and the inevitable, encroaching end of it all. She complains a lot because she can’t find a boyfriend.

Waitaminit—you’re telling me Juliette Binoche can’t find a boyfriend? Is this science-fiction or should I move to Paris immediately?

Klapisch flutters around amongst other characters who barely manage to register, dramatically. Our mad Professor Verneuil has an architect brother (Francois Cluzet) whose paternal anxieties manifest themselves in a completely superfluous animated sequence that should have been left on the cutting room floor. Assorted lower-class and darker-skinned figure pop up from time to time, either to provide excellent customer service or suffer random sexual humiliations and brisk, unfortunate deaths that have no real bearing on the narrative whatsoever.

Stretched out awkwardly for over two hours, Paris feels—like a lot of films in this genre—as if a writer has just emptied out a desk drawer full of half-baked story ideas and hopes that juxtaposing them all in a jumble might somehow substitute for fleshing any given one out to feature length.

 The only unified theme that comes to tying this mess together can be found in the film’s two best scenes, illustrating the act of dancing as one of both intimacy and liberation. First we have the sublime Luchini, letting his stodgy professor’s freak flag fly when spinning a scratchy vinyl copy of Wilson Pickett’s “Land Of 1,000 Dances.” Even better is Binoche, smiling wide and stumbling her way through an impromptu strip-tease that might be the clumsiest, most endearing thing she’s ever done on film.

So that’s the point? Life sucks, people die, might as well dance?

Were it possible for The City of Light to see Nashville or Manhattan, it would probably want to sue for defamation.  C-