New Film Review: Paris Can Wait

PARIS CAN WAIT
Directed by Eleanor Coppola
Screenplay by Eleanor Coppola
Starring Dianne Lane; Arnaud Viard; and Alec Baldwin




I fully understand what Coppola, in her first film in the directors chair, was trying to do here: An older couple doing a little bit of the Linklater Before Sunrise series.
The plot here is Michael (Baldwin) has a French Associate Jacques (Viard) drive is wife Anne (Lane) to Paris. They make many stops on the way as we follow the two travelers.  Well it did not work..
I will start with the positives:
Dianne Lane!! I mean really!!! She looks exactly like she did in Under The Tuscan Sun. How is that possible??!! Coppola knew what she had in her. Every chance of getting a close up...often with out her saying a word...she used. This is not a complaint, this worked. She is such a good actress she says so much with just a look and an expression. You have to love her. That is what Coppola wants...and it worked.
Viard. I have not seen him before. He seems like a good actor. That is all I can say about him. He was there...and he did not suck.


Problems:
-It failed at trying to be Before Sunrise. Where Hawke and Delpy were full of life and had interesting and funny conversations, the two leads here were kind of just boring. and flat. Where Hawke and Delpy had amazing chemistry in Sunrise....enough to make 3 more films, this film... the leads have absolutely has no chemistry. It was not the acting here...because the acting was wonderful. It was the script and just lack of chemistry. Viard's Jacques came across as more of a stalker. A player. Almost gross. While Hawke was fun in Sunrise, Viard is just unsettling. You want Anne to run.
Now Coppola missed this because she clearly left the end open for another film with these two characters in America (Again, like the Sunrise movies revisits). I really do not want to see them both again. I would rather just watch Anne (Lane) in her own film.


2 out of 5 starts for the disappointing Paris Can Wait. Wait for home viewing if you want to see it.


From the shadows as always thanks for your time