Cinematical

Note: This film can't be reviewed without spoilers right from the get-go, so fair warning.

There are about a billion movies released each year, and even someone like myself, whose business is movies, can't see them all. Some of this year's biggest blockbusters and most talked-about art house films will undoubtedly slip by me. So it's certainly possible that director Zoe Cassavetes hasn't seen the film Before Sunset*, which came out three years ago. What's harder to believe is that none of the actors, crew members, or studio people involved with Broken English saw it either. If they had, surely they would have pulled her aside at some point and whispered in her ear that the ending of her film is, while not an actionable rip-off of Sunset's ending, close enough to make any audience member who has seen both films do a double-take. Let's put it this way -- a friend of mine who saw Broken English with me, and is only a casual movie watcher, actually perked up at the end and said 'Hey, isn't that what happened in that other Paris movie, with Ethan Hawke?" That's how similar the two are.

Putting that aside, the film is a passable -- sometimes more than passable -- romantic comedy about a Manhattanite named Nora, played by Parker Posey, whose fast-approaching collision with age 40 reminds her that she has very little in her life. Nora's job is something of a hospitality person at a fancy hotel -- early on we see her tending to whims of a flirty rock star played by Justin Theroux. Her dating life is a revolving door of disappointments and false starts with weirdos and barely-there guys who pay little attention to her, although on the plus side she does live in Manhattan so she at least gets taken to places like the Film Forum, which gets an extended cameo in the film.We actually get to see the theater's notoriously drink-holder-free armrests caught on film -- if only one of the characters had actually commented on it. And of course it goes without saying that there's a best-friend for Parker's character to lean on -- she's played by The Sopranos' Drea de Matteo, in a pretty straight-forward role.

Eventually, a 30-ish Parisian fellow named Julien (Melvil Poupard) will blow through town and make waves, showing an interest in Nora, wining and dining her a little, and then jetting back to where he came from, which leads to the film's main turning point -- Nora decides to quit her crummy hotel job and go chasing him in Paris. It's an odd decision for her to make, since we never see her actually falling hard for Julien during their brief dalliance. He's usually dragging her around by the wrist from place to place, while she plays at being non-committal and somewhat disinterested. We're given enough information to gather that she's something of a depressive, as well as being prone to debilitating anxiety attacks, so perhaps the filmmakers felt that it wouldn't feel right to make theirs the kind of 'affair to remember' that justifies having Nora quit her life to go looking for him. Instead, it's closer to say that once he's gone, she becomes hyper-aware that she may never again find another man who can tolerate her.

The Paris scenes take an unexpected turn when ditzy Nora loses Julien's information and can't find him in Paris. So instead of turning around and going back home, she decides to hang out in the city and try to soak up some of the atmosphere. It's a promising idea that quickly becomes formulaic; every French man Nora meets is an advice-dispensing, dreamy-eyed refugee from a Godard film, and strangers invite her to coffee shops to have a smoke and an impromptu chat about life and love. There's also a bizarre interlude with Gena Rowlands playing a woman who thinks Nora is her granddaughter. I wasn't quite sure if we were supposed to find that whole sequence funny, or touching, or what -- the way it's set up makes you think that she's actually playing Posey's character's grandmother. Drea de Matteo picks up the slack in this section of the film, however, meeting a French man and flirting with him to the point where it seems like she's going to end up cheating on her husband, who is waiting in New York.

Despite having little of substance to do, Parker Posey is still entertaining to watch throughout -- at this point she's a natural at this kind of acting, rolling her eyes and acting oh-so-bored and taking every opportunity to squeeze a funny moment out of an otherwise routine scene. We're never really bored while watching the film, only aware that we haven't really seen much once it's over. As a first-time directing effort, Broken English is far from ground-breaking, but it's certainly competent filmmaking. There are some directors that have been working in Hollywood for twenty years that still struggle with things like shot composition and lighting, but she doesn't exhibit any of those difficulties here. I'm not here to comment on apples and how they do or do not fall from trees, but now that this Cassavetes has given us her take on the 'American in Paris' romantic comedy, she should really move on to something more compelling. And next time, be more careful not to choose an ending that will remind the entire audience of another film.

*I originally wrote rise when I meant set