Paris Can Wait

On a wet weekday afternoon (last Thursday) with the friend in whose house I am staying to dog sit, I went to the movies.

I had read about this movie but it was a disappointment,  Diane Lane is one of those actors with whom I feel a closeness.  She seems to be a woman just like the rest of us and I always enjoy her films.  Lane plays Anne a woman who seems mostly ignored by her husband. Played by Alec Baldwin.  He is another favourite although in this movie he is just passing through.  He appears for a few minutes at the beginning and again at the end.  He is a movie mogul and spends all the time we see him in he movie, on the phone.

Arnaud Viard a French actor of whom I know nothing plays Jacques a a suave, French business partner of Anne’s husband.  

The husband has an appointment in Budapest but Anne has a problem with her ears and doesn’t want to fly  and so when Jacques offers to drive her to Paris  where they will meet up in a few days, they all agree that this is a good answer to the problem.

And this is where for me, the disappointment started.  In an old, unreliable car, Anne is driven through the countryside but we see very little of it.  Much time is spent on food and though we see the food we are given little information as to what they are eating. Perhaps this might have saved the movie.

Jacques, of course (well he is a Frenchman) tries to seduce Anne but she manages to fight off his advances until the end when she is saved by raucous horns being blown in the street below.

For me, it was a nothing film and if I had had anything else to do on that afternoon I would have considered it a waste of time.  But what else is one to do on a rainy Thursday.