Did you people see the same film I saw?

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This film has an overload of good actors and a very interesting script,however it fails so much more than it succeeds. It left me wanting to never visit Paris again.(I am sure Paris is breathing a sigh of relief).In reality I love Paris the city. Mainly because the film was so indulgent and vain. As for the lead actor I really ended up wanting him to die due to his narcissistic attitude to his illness. I read a review that said that the film left many things unresolved much like life.Which is exactly the type of bullshit that this film propagates. It was just a few people shagging around.When they did have sex we did not get to see anything that remotely appeared to hold true to life. I did like the animation section of the film which I thought was genuinely inventive.The way the interwoven stories overlapped in an arbitrary fashion was banal.I am a big fan of French cinema and recognised so many of the actors from much better films.The music was also very irritating.For me the only thing that was left unresolved at he end of the film was why I subjected myself to a film that patted itself on the back at every opportunity. This is not cinema,this is not life,this is a very poor film dressed up as a masterpiece.Avoid honestly avoid.Unless condescension is your bag.

I could watch any film starring the beautiful and talented French actress Juliette Binoche and have seen most of her England-language work, but naturally most of her 40 or so movies are in her first language, including this one from 2008."Paris" is not just a French film, it is a quintessentially Gallic flic. Writer and director Cedric Klapisch makes the eponymous capital city almost an actor in itself with plentiful shots of familiar and unfamiliar locations and typical French spots like the cafe, the boulangerie, and the food market. Also tres Francais is the plentiful dialogue, the existential angst, the beautiful women, the mandatory intellectual, and the odd couplings (although the actual sex is never seen), while Klapisch gives us unconnected characters (Paris is the only thread) and unresolved lives (more like real life than reel life).Binoche plays a social worker who clearly takes her professional work seriously because she is herself a single mother of three children and needs to take time off work to care for her brother (Romain Duris) who has a heart condition that may be fatal. It's all very watchable with social concerns leavened with some humour, but in the end I found it rather indulgent and too loosely worked. Some more narrative structure and drive would have lifted the film from a curiosity to a cur

For anybody who has been following the career of French film maker, Cedric Klapisch (When The Cat's Away,The Spanish Apartment,etc.),this film is a "must see". 'Paris' is Klapisch's love letter to his beloved Paris. Like one of his American influences,Robert Altman,Klapisch's films are ensemble pieces,with overlapping story lines. In this one, we see several Parisian characters who we can easily identify with. There is Pierre,a former dancer,who has learned that he may not have much time left,due to a heart condition. He spends most of his time staring out the window of his apartment,watching life pass by. There is his sister,Elise,who has escaped from a bad marriage,who takes her three children & moves in with Pierre,hoping to somehow cheer him up & try & live with his malady. Other elements include a fifty something historian & professor at the local university (Roland) who has an eye for an attractive student in his class,but is too shy to talk to her up front, so he sends her mushy love letters via text message. Roland's younger brother,Philippe,a well respected architect,who is about to become a father for the first time. Other characters drop in & out of this nicely balanced overview of Parisian life. Klapisch casts his film with the best in French talent that one can conjure up (Juliette Binoche,Roman Dupris,Fabrice Luchini,and the always welcome on screen,Franscois Cluzet). The film's impressive cinematography (with lots of sweeping over head air shots of Paris)is by Christophe Beaucarne. If you got your proverbial groove on with 'Paris,J'taime',check this one out. Spoken in French with English subtitles. Not rated by the MPAA, this film contains pervasive strong language,brief nudity,some sexual content & the aftermath of a horrible automobile accident. Not such a good choice for the little ones (who would probably be bored reading subtitles,anyway)

Many parallel stories here; many of them taking place under the eyes of this young dancer with a heart disease, who watches them from his balcony.He's jealous of these lives and communicates with them mostly through his sister, who after all perhaps is the only real character he knows. She's living, while others perform a kind of theater, from the racist lady in the baker's shop to the professor who tries to have a ridiculous affair with one of his students.The script functions well sometimes and less well other times. A movie to watch or just let go.