Paris Can Wait

It's tempting to make the comparison between Paris Can Wait and the Steve Coogan-Rob Brydon Trip phenomenon. But Coogan and Brydon are smart, witty and credible frenemies. Anne and Jacques come across as vapid brats whose company you're happy to escape. Like the journey it chronicles, Paris Can Wait goes on too long.

Paris Can Wait

But here's the downside: Paris Can Wait doesn't really deal with anything that hasn't been exhaustively explored before on film (including in the previously mentioned Under the Tuscan Sun). The unease that Anne feels, both in her decent-but-distracted marriage and as an empty nester (her daughter is in college), is neither new nor surprising. Nor is it enough of an engine to fuel a possible indiscretion, especially with someone who, though he may be attentive, cosmopolitan, and appealing, also appears to be somewhat hobbled by a retrograde sense of relationships and his own set of work frustrations, which could later balloon into the same problems that pull Michael away. Still, don't wait too long to see Paris Can Wait -- it's a fun, gustatory, eye-candy watch.

At first Anne feels a little awkward about travelling with the single Frenchman. Yet those misgivings soon take a back seat to the frustration she experiences when she discovers neither Jacques nor his old car can go very far without having to stop to refuel. In the case of the automobile, it is water and gas. For Jacques, it is cigarettes and fine cuisine. Still, after a day or two of his wining and dining, accompanied with a side dish of attentiveness and a heaping helping of complements, the usually ignored and/or taken for granted woman starts to agree with her charming companion: Paris can wait!

Often Jacques is communicating with waiters, sommeliers, mechanics and old girlfriends in French, and we experience this as Anne (whom he nickames Brulee, after the French dessert) does. She is an American woman trapped in a foreign land with a take-charge French sexist, who orders for her, decides where they stop and picks out the hotels.

Michael (Alec Baldwin) is workaholic film producer who is waiting for a chance to vacation in Paris and for the first time in many years to spend some quality time with his wife Anne (Diane Lane); she runs her own fabric shop in California. Michael is a smart-phone addict who can never cancel a call or speak briefly. He is plugged into the 24/7 nomad world of entertainment. All he really needs from his wife is her ability to match his socks. 041b061a72