Enjoyable fluff for the fan or Francophile

Rating: 5/10 (26 May 2012)

I'm really baffled by the praise for the film, and Woody is one of my favourites. He obviously loves Paris and he wants to stage the fantasy of 1920s Paris as his, perhaps it could be anyone's, his point is simply the classic Romantic line that forces that move us to be interested in another time and place are unappreciated by capitalist materialists.
The characters are generally flat, and Owen Wilson as the protagonist is another of the awkward stand-ins that Woody ventriloquises. There is little of the detailed structure of interpersonal engagement that usually give his films something to chew on. All the figures of Euro-American modernism that are celebrated in the film are also flattened into stereotypes.
The art direction is superb and the city looks its best version of its cliché. But where Manhattan paired the visual city with the interior world of its inhabitants, this one is all about the surface.