Movie Review: Paris Can Wait

I found it hard to figure out what this movie is really all about. Was it a travel log about what it is like to drive through France on your way to Paris, stopping at very old museums and eating at very expensive French restaurants, or was it a story about infidelity and a marriage that is not going that well? After the movie was over, I thought this movie was about both of these things.

This film stars Diane Lane as Anne, who is a woman traveling through Europe with her movie producing husband played by Alec Baldwin and it is obvious from the beginning that her husband is much more interested in the problems he is having with producing a film and constant phone calls than his wife. Due to high altitude and inner ear pain, Anne decides to drive to Paris France rather than fly with her husband and her driver is a friend of her husband, Jacques played by French actor Arnaud Viard who is very clearly attracted to Anne. From this point, this movie is nothing more than conversation and very subtle flirting between the Anne and Jacques as they drive through France and take several diversions along the way. This film probably has the least story of any movie I have seen in a long time. The acting is good throughout, but it is hard to fully recommend a movie that has so little going on. I thought it was nice to see parts of France that very few of us will probably ever see, so this is a good movie for anyone who has had the desire to visit France. The end of this movie was very strange, with a shot of Diane Lane looking directly into the camera enjoying some chocolate covered roses. I have not seen an actor looking directly into a camera like that since the release of Ferris Bueller's Day Off 31 years ago. Why the director decided to put that at the end of this movie, I thought was completely out of place.

As far as recommending this film, I do recommend it as a travel log about the countryside of France, but I do not recommend it as a movie because the story was not strong enough to keep your attention for the entire 2 hours.