DANS PARIS, anglicized as In Paris, had this punished witness ready to bail out after the first five minutes of its 2006 dirge, written & directed Christophe Honoré. I was watching with friends—we were revolving picks on different nights—and didn’t want to be rude, so with what was either gumption on the order of the 301st Spartan or maybe a hidden streak of cerebral masochism I stuck with its hour and a half of pretentious anomie. For a little while, faint hope whispered that somehow it might—had—to get better, and really, how long is 92 minutes? Quite a while, actually, if you’re being tortured. *

Not a picture of me watching the show, but it will serve.

Paris, Christmas time. The City of Light is a Metropolis of Blight for ‘Paul’ (Romain Duris), his younger brother ‘Jonathan’ (Louis Garrell), their parents (Guy Marchand, Marie-France Pisier), a few frustrated ex’s and several used & abused friends. The folks are divorced, a younger sister has committed suicide, Paul, broken up with girlfriend ‘Anna’ (Joanna Preiss), is so depressed he can barely function and Jonathan is a careless (and charmless) Romeo who picks up, gets it on with and discards women like they’re hand towels.

Like the valiant cuirassiers and poilus slaughtered at Waterloo and Verdun, the actors do their Gallic duty. Unfortunately they were drafted by a commander who swapped espirit de corps for quiche ala merde. Self-consciously smug, vague and meandering, its a grinding bummer, specked with some left-field tonal shifts randomly inserted, apparently intended to lighten up the barrage of bleakness. Marchand and Pisier wrestle a jot of sympathy as the defeated father and mother, but the characters of the brothers and the others are so relentlessly off-putting you can’t summon a franc of care about any of them: Jonathan and Anna in particular will have you wishing they’d step in front of a speeding Citroen.  Made for an estimated €1,500,000, returning an international gross of $1,810,452 internationally, a teency 3/5% ($63,667) of that in the States, it’s often tagged in reviews (60% positive, no wonder we’re doomed) as a ‘romantic comedy-drama’, and a number of critics cite its humor (AYFKM?), observations so numbingly off-base you can only be glad not to be forced to hang around nincompoops who would think so.

“I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t trust myself when I’m in love. I get nervous and say the wrong things or I start examining, evaluating, calculating what I say. I say “Think it will rain?” She responds, “I don’t know.” Then I wonder if she’s even interested. It all scares me to death. Yes, scared to death. A friend once told me having a fuck buddy is better than falling in love. I think he’s right. Rain makes flowers grow and snails happy. That’s a fact. But if a girl loves me she starts acting strangely, like asking me funny questions and pouting when I snap at her or saying things like “Think it will rain?” and I say “I have no idea” and she says “Oh” and gets all sad looking up at the California-blue sky. That makes me thank God it’s you, darling. This time it’s your turn.”   Translation: the kind of faux deep, morose drivel that provokes rethinking history to wonder if maybe Germany invaded just to get them to STF up?

With Helene Noguerra and Judith El Zain.

* Remember when people were polite? Ingrained with that archaic concept my friends and I took it on the chin and endured this one for you (put check in mail). When Finis blessedly arrived, we were stunned into silence, gradually renewing our sapped life force with the certainty that at least we’d never watch this again, even if the sacrifice would bring about World Peace. As a film fiend of sorts, your humble scout has seen at least 7,000 movies, and obviously a good number have ranked below ‘fair’. Schmaltzy musicals, boring B-westerns, sorry sci-fi, twisted horror junk, insipid comedies, etc. Dans Paris is far from the worst in a big pile, but as of the Summer of 2026, it reek-ranks as the most irritating picture yours truly has sat thru in…years. If you insist on infection be warned: Monsieur Honoré’s whine-tasting menu of scruffy, singularly unlikable, collectively miserable creeps could nudge a person to strike his grey, gayless Paree from the bucket list for somewhere more cheerful. Like maybe North Korea.

Oui oui, already: after all this bonking, we hasten to mention that 2006 also provided a real winner set in the beautiful and beloved French capital, a delightful bonbon known as Paris je t’aime. Go there. Bring a friend.