New York, I Love You (Saturday, October 17, 2009) (149)

This film is a re-make of the recent French picture Paris, Je T'Aime that had a series of simple one-scene film shorts about people falling in love in the French capital. As only dunderheaded Hollywood folk can do, producers felt that if it worked OK en francais, pourquoi pas en Anglais. (OK- I'll stop with the French, though I do like to think of film people speaking French when ripping off a tired idea.)

The main problem with the concept, though, is that the French film as thin and treacly. In other words, there was once a bad French movie that was re-made in New York and the re-make is really bad.

So the outline of the film remains the same: A pastiche of short films set in New York City dealing with people falling in love, flirting, falling out of love or fucking. I should be clear here - by 'people,' I'm only speaking of white people and by 'New York City,' I'm only speaking of Manhattan and Jewy Brooklyn. How there could not be a single story of black people, Latino people, Korean people, Russian people - let alone a single gay person of any gender - is shocking to me and makes me think the production had nothing to do with New Yorkers at all. (To be fair, there is one Sikh man, one Chinese woman, one bi-racial whore, one Orthodox Jewish woman, and an old Jewish couple - Yay! Diversity!)

Each short is directed by a different film maker and each one has its own personality and style. One is silly and funny, one is tragic, one is romantic, one is naturalistic. Then in between each sequence, there are a few characters who tie all the stories together (because as American film viewers, we are apparently dumbfucks and can't possibly understand a bunch of shorts without a few directorial guides). Rather than helping to tie the stories together, these interludes create more unusual segues - suggesting connections that are not actually there at all. Letting one short butt up against another would be much easier to comprehend. Instead we are left asking if there is one major story that we're missing as we watch all the small films. (There is not.)

Easily the biggest surprise of the whole thing is that some of the actors and directors who I would expect the least from give some of the best moments. Director Brett Ratner, who I think normally can't direct his way out of a paper bag, does a great job in his short about a boy (Anton Yelchin) who is tricked into taking a girl in a wheelchair (Olivia Thirlby) to the senior prom. It's a very funny bit and generally well done -and easily the best of all the shorts. Actor Shia LaBeouf, who I think is a terrible actor, is very good in a serious role in a heavy-handed, but elegant-ish short by Shekhar Kapur (a director I don't think much of either).

But this is, like, the worst praise a movie can get, right? That the people who really suck in general didn't suck as much as expected and were actually pretty OK. Well - that's about all I'm going to give the film. Why there were not love stories set in Washington Heights or Spanish Harlem with people who spoke Spanish, or why there was not, say a Korean story in Queens - or, forgodssake, a gay love story - is totally beyond me. I don't think this is going to get much attention or play outside of New York and I think New Yorkers are rather bored by such a safe, white script purporting to be about the whole city.

Stars: .5 of 4