Nick (Jim Broadbent) and Meg (Lindsay Duncan) return to Paris to relive their honeymoon 30 years on. Well, that's the idea, we're told, but from the start it's pretty clear that she, at least, does not want to be there. So they bicker a bit, engage in some highly dodgy sexual bantering, and meet up by chance with one of Nick's old mates (Jeff Goldblum). She is rather tempted to have a fling with one of the guests at a party given by the latter, while Nick lapses into a kind of resigned despair. But somehow they all manage to remain friends. Nick and Meg even manage some jolly capers while escaping from a restaurant without paying (except that they repeat the trick when leaving their very expensive hotel, which gives the impression that the director ran out of ideas and/or forgot that when you repeat a joke, the second time it isn't funny - unless you're say, Tommy Cooper).
Paris looks pretty good and it's all quite entertaining. But as a drama it falls flat. I'm not a big fan of Jim Broadbent though he is OK here. But he and Lindsay Duncan are not exactly Burton and Taylor so Nick and Meg's relationship lacks any real bite. It's all a bit sad, a bit lacklustre, perhaps even a bit lazy - or should that be cynical and slapdash? La-la how the life goes on!
Worth a look on a wet afternoon when you've nothing better to do. But don't put yourself out to see it.
(Viewed at Screen 2, The Cornerhouse, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK on 24 October 2013)
Paris looks pretty good and it's all quite entertaining. But as a drama it falls flat. I'm not a big fan of Jim Broadbent though he is OK here. But he and Lindsay Duncan are not exactly Burton and Taylor so Nick and Meg's relationship lacks any real bite. It's all a bit sad, a bit lacklustre, perhaps even a bit lazy - or should that be cynical and slapdash? La-la how the life goes on!
Worth a look on a wet afternoon when you've nothing better to do. But don't put yourself out to see it.
(Viewed at Screen 2, The Cornerhouse, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK on 24 October 2013)