PARIS CAN WAIT (2016)
Directed by Eleanor
Coppola
Sony Classic
Pictures, PG, 92 minutes
★
If we could eat a movie, Paris
Can Wait would be a gourmet meal at a four-star restaurant. Because we
can’t, it induces the heartburn of a greasy spoon truck stop. It’s also a
cautionary tale against nepotism.
The setup is dead simple. Anne Lockwood (Diane Lane) is
married to a high-powered movie producer Michael (Alec Baldwin), who is so
caught up in his work and incessant phone calls that he essentially treats his
wife as an afterthought. I can’t think of a single heterosexual male on the
planet who would ignore Diane Lane, so strike one in the Dumb Premise
Department. Anne and Michael are in Provence, but he might as well be in his LA
office as all he never looks at anything except his phone. Strike two.
Idiotic plot devices and a defiance of the laws of logic and
human biology make strike three. Michael has to fly to Budapest to put out a
production fire, but Anne comes down with an earache and can’t fly. Instead,
Michael’s assistant Jacques (Arnaud Viard) offers to drive her to Paris, where
Michael and she can rendezvous when the crisis is over. Road trip!
Now for the nepotism. Eleanor Copolla is married to Francis
Ford Copolla and is the mother of director Sofia Copolla. She’s a skilled documentarian,
but has never before made a feature film. She still hasn’t if we count this
one. Do you think she would have gotten the chance to write the script (such as
it is), co-produce, and direct Paris Can
Wait were she not movie royalty?
Alas, she got this opportunity, and used it to make a
travelogue documentary burdened with fictional characters. Jacques is a
gourmand. Or at least that’s the setup for all manner of plot devices—and I do
mean “devices.” Everything is simply an excuse for detours on the road to Paris
that highlight regional sights and take us to gastronomic heaven. It all has
the heft of Facebook postings of food. If only we could click “like” and move
on.
It’s obvious to everyone except Anne that Jacques is trying
to seduce her. This plot device requires that Lane act oblivious for most of
the film. Aren’t we supposed to be light years beyond hot chick as bimbo roles?
Anne doesn’t even pick up on cues when Jacques suggestively dips his finger
into a cone-shaped chocolate delicacy called “Venus nipples.” That’s an actual
thing, but really!
Not even this stretches credulity as much as the amount of
food and wine Jacques and Anne consume in just a few days. Ancient Romans
flanked by a vomitorium couldn’t put away this much food and booze. I wish I
had counted how many glasses of wine each consumed in the course of a day. I’m
pretty sure they’d be in a coma from that much alcohol, but I’d have to
re-watch the film to be certain and there are some things I refuse to do for
the sake of art.
Stereotypes of French men also abound.
If you want to see scrumptious food and stunning countryside
and can’t afford a trip to Provence, borrow a National Geographic special. Or,
you could watch this film—with the sound off. Paris Can Wait is an epic, as in epically bad.
Rob Weir
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