PARIS MANHATTAN

Alice is obsessed with Woody Allen.  She has a giant poster of him in her bedroom which she pours her heart too every night even though she is an intelligent woman and a successful pharmacist too boot. Even in the Drugstore she runs with her father in Paris she hands out DVD’s of her favorite Allen movies instead of medicine to fix many people’s ailments.  Even after a cack-handed attempt at robbing the Store goes wrong, she thrusts some movies in the fleeing burglar’s hands telling him it will change his life.

This very sweet but extremely lightweight French ‘boulevard comedy’ is hard to swallow if you don’t share a love of Allen and his bon-mots that litter the script throughout.  Newbie writer/director Sophie Lellouche tries to emulate her idol by making this about layers of different sophisticated relationships within this one family, but falls far short.  Alice’s family’s clumsy attempts at getting her wed when their own marriages are full of holes doesn’t gel until she actually meets Victor, a burglar alarm engineer who is the only one who actually see and say it for what it is. The fact that he is played by veteran actor Patrick Bruel uplifts the film to make it a tad more amusing than the frothy piece it was heading to be.

I’m a big fan of French moviemakers who cast big rugged men with their lived-in faces for the romantic leads unlike the pretty boys that Americans always cast.  On the other hand, I am so over seeing bumbling old US Director/Actors still in front of the camera …that would be you Mr Allen, Mr Redford and Mr Eastwood in particular.

I will totally confess that I saw this movie by accident.  When we arrived at the Multiplex after a sudden change of plans, about 17 of the 18 screens where showing Iron Man 3 in 3D, HD,2D etc etc. This was (almost) the only alternative  (a Diane Keaton movie DOESN’T count!) and we thought ‘how bad can an unknown French comedy be?’  The answer : really not bad at all, and in my book, a lot more fun than Robert Downey Jnr putting that ridiculous metal suit on again to save the World and Gwyneth Paltrow (in that order).

★★★★★★