Paris 06/24 Blu-ray (Rental)

Product Description From CTdric Klapisch - the award-winning writer/director of L'Auberge Espagnole - comes a deliciously intimate new valentine to the City of Lights featuring an all-star cast that includes Oscar-winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient), Romain Duris (The Beat That My Heart Skipped), MTlanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) and Frantois Cluzet (Tell No One). It's the story of a young Moulin Rouge dancer (Duris) awaiting a heart transplant, his single-mother / social worker sister (Binoche), and their rediscovery of the life, laughter and love that hides within every balcony, apartment window, street corner and market stall. These are the stories of the middle-class and bourgeois, immigrants and students, fashion models and homeless, and all the lovers and strangers whose paths could only cross - and whose worlds are about to change forever - in Paris. Amazon.com In Paris, a superb cast led by by Romain Duris (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) and Juliette Binoche (The English Patient,Caché) give emotional heft to a delicate web of social relationships. Previous films of French director Cedric Klapisch have made a microcosm of a neighborhood (When the Cat’s Away) and a shared apartment (L’auberge espagnole). Paris encompasses the City of Lights in an Altman-esque merry-go-round: When a dancer (Duris) discovers he has heart trouble, he’s reluctant to tell his sister (Binoche), a social worker raising three children by herself. Meanwhile, a middle-aged historian (Fabrice Luchini, Claire’s Knee) finds sudden fortune as the host of a television series, but can’t keep himself from sending Baudelaire poems via text message to a lovely young student (Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds). In between these two primary storylines, a multitude of other characters overlap in significant and trivial ways. Minor disappointments and casual pleasures brush against life-changing troubles and, every once in a while, the tantalizing possibility of a lasting happiness. Klapisch has broad ideas about the importance of community, spontaneity, and human contact, but the movie’s success lies in the grit and vividness of simple social interactions--awkward, combative, misunderstood, and joyous. There are missteps (a flimsy dream sequence jars against the movie’s deft naturalism), but they’re small and forgivable. Paris is a lovely and moving film, full of offhand gestures and accidents that will linger in your memory, charged with unexpected resonance. --Bret Fetzer