The problem with “Paris” is director Cedric Klapisch provides a lot of snapshots of people’s lives without fully entering into any of them. So you meet many people and get snippets of love, illness, jealousy, depression, loneliness, and crass behavior with immigration issues thrown in for good measure. But no big picture although protagonist Pierre (Romain Duris) admits at the end of the movie, ‘That’s Paris. No one’s ever happy. We always grumble.’ Is that the point of this meandering 130 minutes of a movie? Maybe the point is that there is no point.
Pierre (Duris), a cabaret dancer, has a life-threatening heart ailment that a transplant may or may not fix. So he bides his time, experiencing life at a distance from his balcony. Taking care of him is his sister Elise, (Juliette Binoche), who moves into his apartment with her three children. Roland (Fabrice Luchini), a university professor, falls for one of his students, Laetitia (Melanie Laurent also in ‘Inglorious Basterds’). Meanwhile Jean (Albert Dupontel), a vendor at an open-air market, flirts with Elise and has mixed feelings about his ex-wife Caroline (Julie Ferrier). There are two or three other story lines as well. The only relationship that’s engaging is between Pierre and his sister; the others are not developed enough for you to care what happens to them. However, Klapisch does a more than adequate job of revealing the beauties of a Paris that the average tourist never sees. Subtitles. 9/22/09
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