X
- 2017
- PG
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 32 m
- 2017
- PG
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 32 m
Summary Anne (Diane Lane) is at a crossroads in her life. Long married to a successfully driven but inattentive movie producer (Alec Baldwin), she finds herself taking a car trip from Cannes to Paris with a business associate of her husband (Arnaud Viard). What should be a seven-hour drive turns into a journey of discovery involving fine food an...
Directed By: Eleanor Coppola
Written By: Eleanor Coppola
- 2017
- PG
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 32 m
- 2017
- PG
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 32 m
Paris Can Wait
48
5.0
Where to Watch
Summary Anne (Diane Lane) is at a crossroads in her life. Long married to a successfully driven but inattentive movie producer (Alec Baldwin), she finds herself taking a car trip from Cannes to Paris with a business associate of her husband (Arnaud Viard). What should be a seven-hour drive turns into a journey of discovery involving fine food an...
Directed By: Eleanor Coppola
Written By: Eleanor Coppola
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 25 Critic Reviews
48
40% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
44% Mixed
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
16% Negative
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 25 Critic Reviews
48
40% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
44% Mixed
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
16% Negative
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
One of the sexiest and most joyful road movies in some time.
Sometimes beauty and charm are enough to turn a middling movie into pure ambrosia. Diane Lane has plenty of both, and she uses them wisely in Paris Can Wait, elevating an otherwise mild and inconsequential film to unexpected heights of enchantment.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 14 User Ratings
5.0
29% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
57% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
14% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 14 User Ratings
5.0
29% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
57% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
14% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
How can you not love a movie that is full of food being talked about, served, eaten, cooked and shown in restaurants, hotel rooms, in open markets, farms and let’s not even get into the love of chocolate by the female star? Let’s throw in wine, lots of wine, for every, and any, occasion. Oh heck, toss in a car of roses driven by a man who knows nothing about a car but can make every topic about food.
Diane Lane is Annie, a woman married to a workaholic producer Michael, played by Alec Baldwin, who seems to be so busy I think he had 5 minutes screen time! He is on his way to Budapest but because of ear infections can’t fly with him so she agrees to drive from Cannes, where they are, to Paris which is a 7 hour drive if she didn’t accept her husband’s business associate, Jacques, played by Arnaud Viard, to drive with him which turns into a 2 day journey.
Yes, Jacques is the food man who can pick dandelion greens and talk about making a salad or insists they stop here and there where he knows a chef, a restaurant owner, a farmer or when they have car trouble just happens to have a picnic basket and who keeps on insisting that “Paris Can Wait” and who can say he is wrong?
Anne, like some people I know (ME!), is constantly taking pictures with her digital camera of all the food she is surrounded by plus the museums, churches, Roman ruins and the very photogenic locations they drive through sometimes stopping the picturesque France we have always imagined. I think she took more pictures than he smoked and a drinking game involving a shot every time he had a cigarette could end with everyone getting bombed before the movie ends!
“Paris Can Wait” has a story with the irascible French roué plying her with things that could seduce her as only a Frenchman can and it may interest you but the food, the wine and the roses steal the picture.
The chocolate candies, cakes, hot chocolates, every and any form of chocolate you can think of, is reason to see the movie, even you strange ones who say you don’t like chocolate!
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Paris Can Wait isn’t exactly a feast, but it’s a snack worth having.
Paris Can Wait is Coppola’s feature solo writing-directing debut, filmed in her 80th year. It would be cheering to report that it’s a great movie, but you can’t have everything.
The film leaves the lasting impression of a story that takes place in its own elitist and hermetically sealed world.
Imagine The Trip meets Lost in Translation (Coppola’s daughter Sophia’s debut), but with stale dialogue and neither much romance nor comedy
A poorly acted, colossal bore of a film that strikes wrong notes from beginning to end.
Diane Lane plays the wife of a busy producer (Alex Baldwin, who's barely in the movie). When he jets off to another location, she catches a ride to Paris her hubby's business associate (Arnaud Viard). Their trip turns into a leisurely drive thru the French countryside, exploring sites and enjoying elaborate meals. The script and pacing lack much drama or emotional variety…it's just a tranquil journey with a soupçon of underplayed erotic tension. This is the first film for Eleanor Coppola (the wife of the famous director) and she shows an assured hand with the performances. Still, the whole experience lacks the energy to make it more than a genteel little road trip.
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The wife (Diane Lane) of a successful movie producer (Alec Baldwin) takes a road trip from the south of France to Paris with one of her husband's associates (Arnaud Viard). They eat well, drink good wine, talk and… you know.
Wow, a movie lasting only 92 minutes. Whatever happened to most of the them clockin in at around two hours? Sadly, „Paris Can Wait“ – original title „Bonjour Anne“ – can be uninspired or boring enough to feel like last two hours. But it’s a start. Here’s to shorter movies!
Technically, it’s so well made and put together that I should give it 10 out of 10. It looks every bit as delicious as in trailers.
There’s only one small „but“ lurking around… it’s near-perfect only for a certain taste which I don’t happen to share. And if one is not into that sort of thing, the result can feel so bland and soulless that it bites you in the ass.
It’s a perfect movie for a little girl in all of us, regardless the age or gender, taking place in a world where life doesn’t have any depth, everything is black and white, and/or.
It’s also unapologetically consumerist – meaningful life equals mostly to fine wining and dining and travelling, creativity equals to taking photos while doing it. And it’s OK to be a trophy wife if your husband doesn’t just work all the time. I could go on and be more specific but I am afraid of boring all my three readers.
All this doesn’t surprise much if you consider the background of the debuting writer-director Eleanor Coppola (white American, old, upper upper class – a wife of 54 years of Francis Ford Coppola, by the way).
Well, at least she was satisfied with a short movie of depthless and consumerist kind, unlike her colleagues such as Nancy Meyers or Diane Keaton.
The most interesting thing about „Paris Can Wait“ is definitely that Coppola debuted as a feature movie writer and director at the mature age of 80 years (she’s done documentaries before). And she’s not even ****! The distinction belongs to Japanese Takeo Kimura, who was close to 90.
So… if you liked the trailer, you should maybe try it out for 10 minutes or so. If you can stomach the style and approach, you will probably enjoy the result.
If not, quit while you’re ahead. It does feel like a longer movie if you stick around. Recent and in a way similar „Home Again“ starring Reese Witherspoon is more fun.
Still, it’s good to see Diane Lane still doing movies, and she’s wonderful here too. (Viard is enjoyable too.) Only… getting offered mostly this kind of „miss nice guy“ roles are exactly why she contemplated quitting acting before. Funny.
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Paris Can Wait is a film about Diane Lane being married to a creepy movie producer portrayed by Alec Baldwin and traveling across France with a creepy Frenchman portrayed by Arnaud Viard. Ann (Lane) is unhappy in her marriage to Michael (Baldwin), so when Jacques (Viard) starts to show her some attention, she begins to slowly warm to his company. A largely run-of-the-mill story about a middle-aged woman feeling beautiful around another man and possibly embarking on an affair with this other man, Paris Can Wait is largely rather dull and uninteresting, made all the more difficult to finish due to how annoying Jacques is as a character. That said, it is largely a harmless film that may be diversion cinema, but it at least manages the pass the time a bit.
One of the biggest issues with Paris Can Wait is its lack of narrative depth and tension. The closest the film gets to the latter is when Jacques charges some expensive meals on Ann's credit card and says that his card was stolen. However, it is hardly anything substantial. Otherwise, the film just sort of floats by without much happening. They eat French food, he stops at the side of the road again, she gets annoyed with him, they eat again, and then he asks her some personal questions. It is in the latter that the film hints at depth with Ann discussing her marriage to Michael and Jacques accidentally telling her that Michael may not be telling Ann the whole truth all the time. However, none of this really brings them closer. Instead, Paris Can Wait relies on them both having experienced tragedies in their lives as a reason to sell their relationship and friendship. After one quick conversation about those they lost, they begin to get along a lot better with one another and seem to form a bond that was not there seconds prior. This cheap attempt to create both emotional resonance for the audience and sell the fact that Ann is set to do an about-face and fall in love Jacques, it really highlights how Paris Can Wait is just too underwritten. These characters are paper-thin and hard to really get involved with as the film seems to pre-occupy its mind with other pursuits.
That other pursuit is food and French landmarks. As Jacques drives Ann from Cannes to Paris, he stops every five seconds to show her some landmark or get her to eat at some restaurant. Too focused on these landmarks and the food, Paris Can Wait too often feels like a bad Travel Channel show or episode of Anthony Bourdain. Espousing constantly about how great French food is and how great the French countryside is, Paris Can Wait manages to make for a great tourist advertisement, but it does little for the film itself. Instead, it just becomes a grating experience as Jacques stops every two feet, hits on Ann, and then rambles on about wherever they are. In fact, it becomes rather grating and off-putting to the point that Paris Can Wait often feels like the longest road trip in cinematic history, even if it only takes place over the course of two days.
While mildly funny at times, Paris Can Wait is like a stale fish. Its characters are paper-thin, its narrative set-up of a woman meeting a man who finally pays attention to her in spite of her advanced age is a classic adult cinema trope, and its trip across the French country side seems to be a better fit for a television infomercial than a feature film. Though Diane Lane is charming in the lead role, Paris Can Wait is an ineffectual, trite, and absolutely dull film that can be safely avoided without missing anything.
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"Paris Can Wait” stars Diane Lane, Arnaud Viard and Alec Baldwin (who appears for about 30 seconds) in this movie written and directed by Eleanor Coppola via the vehicle of her husband, Francis Ford Coppola’s production company, Zoetrope. I mention the matrimonial ties between the producer and the writer/director because ,were it not for that, I doubt if any other film producer would invest in such a project. The film is thin both in terms of substance and character development and, quite simply, is nothing more than a view of French scenery on a road trip to Paris with gourmet dining along the way. As with most French specialty dishes, the presentation is more appealing than the amount of food to be digested and the analogy applies to this film as well. How many plates of appetizing food and rare wines can one member of the audience absorb in the 92 minutes it takes for the couple to arrive at their destination. Ms. Lane and Mr. Viard are fine actors and do their best with the limited material given them but, unfortunately, the audience, like Ms. Lane’s character, would have wanted the trip to Paris to have been faster and with fewer gastronomical stops. I give this film 1 star with a suggestion that theaters offer free Tums or Rolaids with each ticket. Better still, just as “Paris Can Wait’, the viewer might be advised to do so too, at least until the film is ultimately exhibited on TV (if a non-Coppola entity will air it).
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Production Company
Lifetime Films,
American Zoetrope,
Corner Piece Capital,
Protagonist Pictures,
Tohokushinsha Film Corporation (TFC)
Release Date May 12, 2017
Duration 1 h 32 m
Rating PG
Tagline Take a break and go on a journey through the French countryside
Awards
SXSW Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
