Eleanor Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola’s longtime wife, makes her feature filmmaking debut at the age of 81, and the resulting film is better than anything her husband has made in decades. It is also one of 2017’s more delightful treasures, a seeming summer trifle filled with love, life, and food.
Due to a contrived medical ailment, Anne (the forever ravishing Diane Lane), the longtime wife of film producer Michael Lockwood (Alec Baldwin, briefly and mostly offscreen), opts to not fly to Budapest with her husband and instead ride to Paris with his very French business partner, Jacques (Arnaud Viard). Jacques’ idea of a road trip involves stopping in every town to sample the history and the cuisine.
The result is an even more food-porn The Trip, with less funny accents and more romance, as Anne and Jacques engage in a chaste fling during their time on the road. After all, he is a Frenchman, and cares little about seducing a married woman. Coppola may present Jacques as both lovable and charming, but he is also a walking cliché of the prototypical French male.
Do not see Paris Can Wait on an empty stomach; the decadent multi-course meals are gorgeously photographed, often by Anne, and the wine flows like a river. And after convincing you to dine at The National, the film might inspire you to book a trip to France; it captures the countryside between Cannes and Paris as beautifully as it does the cuisine. Sure, Paris may always be there, but this movie will not be at Ciné forever. Don’t risk missing out on its delicious charms.
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