“Paris Can Wait” may have the number one priority of arriving straight to Paris, France, but it is never in the least stressful. In fact, it basically becomes a private tour of France, complete with food, paintings, monuments, and buildings. Mix all this with a lot of humor and heart, and you get yourself a charming comedy.
Diane Lane stars as the middle-aged Anne, who is set to leave Cannes with her inattentive movie producer husband Michael (Alec Baldwin). She starts suffering from ear aches, and feels uncomfortable to fly with him to Budapest. So she decides to join his French associate Jacques (Arnaud Viard) on what was supposed to be a seven-hour ride to Paris. Actually it ends up becoming two days, because Jacques decides to show her the sights, the colors, and the food. In fact, as skinny as he is, he has a big appetite, and he even starts to explore Anne’s ambitions and feelings. And no matter how soon she wants to arrive in Paris, she still discovers at the fine arts and delicacies.
One of the running gags or visual delights is when Anne takes pictures of all the food she tries, and all the monuments and arts she sees. Often, she takes pictures really close, and each picture is clear as a bell. I knew at one point someone would criticize her, even if I can’t understand them. In fact, the one downfall of this otherwise delight is how they add no subtitles when the characters speak French. Maybe that was a way of how American tourists can’t have the subtitles they need, but being that this is a movie, I wanted more than just translations.
Written, produced, and directed by Eleanor Coppola, wife of you know who, “Paris Can Wait” is more than just a movie tour of France; it features a woman with personal traits and ambitions, a charming Frenchman, who doesn’t just flirt or spoil her, and Lane and Viard have the kind of chemistry Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have in the “Before” trilogy. Baldwin may have a small role, but he also shines from time-to-time, especially when Lane takes pictures of him. The whole movie is delicious, humorous, and gorgeously shot, and again, it will make you feel like you’ve been given a special tour of France.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
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