Paris Can Wait
Opening Friday, June 16
Very pretty and very slight, Paris Can Wait is the first narrative feature directed by Eleanor Coppola, the eighty-one-year-old photographer and documentary filmmaker who is married to Francis Ford Coppola. Diane Lane stars as Anne, the wife of a busy Hollywood filmmaker, and there’s a scent of autobiography throughout.
Frustrated with her inattentive husband, Anne agrees to travel through the south of France with Jacques (Arnaud Viard), a business associate and rakish Gallic gentleman intent on attaining the finer things in life: food, wine, roses, and expensive cigarettes. Paris chronicles a two-day trip with a procession of gorgeous imageslandscapes and foodie portraits, mostlywrapped around a lightweight narrative as Anne proceeds to get the remainder of her groove back. We’ve seen Lane in this mode before (Under the Tuscan Sun), and she’s as lovely and likeable as ever. En route to Paris, Anne comes to admire the spontaneous Frenchman and his unhurried approach to life. Will Anne and Jacques seal the deal?
Best known for her 1991 doc Hearts of Darkness, Coppola is an accomplished visual artist. Her carefully composed images are the best reason to tour Paris, an otherwise thin story of One Percenters in mild crisis.
