Dans Paris

Dans Paris is a tedious, pretentious drama about depression, failed romance, and the general meaninglessness of life. It's full of characters in "deep" conversations full of inert dialogue that are almost comically bleak. It's also ruined by strained stylistic allusions to the French New Wave that take what might have just been a mediocre talkie and render it utterly frustrating. The basic, grainy look to the film is textbook effective but experimentation with direct address and other reflexive techniques feels mostly awkward and disruptive to the story. Romain Duris and Louis Garrel star as two very different brothers, one depressed after the end of a long term relationship and the other a free spirit womanizer with little concern for anything at all. Both actors possess the kind of charisma and naturally articulate flair that's needed in films like these but they still can't save writer/director Christophe Honoré's clunker from its sad fate.

At best you can call it a creative experiment or a harmless homage to more talented French filmmakers. But nihilism has never been more interminably dull than it is here. Nonetheless, there are some brief charms. The cast manages to eke out some refreshingly simple moments between their convoluted declarations of doom and gloom. At lighter times in the film, Duris and Garrel let their charms run the show (Duris perking up to dance a bit to Kim Wilde's "Cambodia" is just the right note of silly and oddly sad), but elsewhere they are stonewalled by a stiff, far reaching director who is out of his league.

Grade: C