I was hoping for a blend of Love Actually and Amelie, but Paris Je T'aime falls well short of either. The little film festival fails to capture either the emotional momentum of the former or the magic of the latter, but the collection of shorts has enough charm of it’s own that it’s a pleasant experience.

18 shorts about love in Paris. They’re hit and miss, but generally good enough to keep you going. Wes Craven directs a piece about Oscar Wilde appearing from the dead to preserve a marriage, Natalie Portman appears in a love story about miscommunication, and Elijah wood stars in a stylized piece about vampire love. For a French film, there’s a lot of non-French actors and a lot of spoken English.

The two best pieces, ironically enough, involve main characters who are neither French nor find love. The Coen brothers direct a comedic short with favorite Steve Buscemi as a tourist in a Parisian subway, but the film’s crown jewel is its final short from Alexander Payne. An American mail carrier with a thick American accent makes her way through Paris alone, steadfastly trying to learn the language steadfastly in hope of finding love. Its climax is one of the most touching I’ve ever seen in a short.

The film ends by trying to tie some of the stories together and bring a sense of resolution to a few, but Paris Je T'aime would have been much better off without it. Let it just be what it is. I hope to see more film short collections in the future.

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