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5.6/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.6/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. A Parisian Romance remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you like movies where people stand in grand rooms and talk about their feelings in a way nobody actually talks, you might find this charming. If you need your pacing to be snappy, skip this. It's for the people who want to see the 1930s version of a bad breakup.
Lew Cody is playing the kind of guy who probably spends too much time looking at himself in the mirror. He’s smooth, sure, but it’s that exhausting kind of smooth that makes you want to trip him on his way to the next soirée. Watching him try to break up a young couple feels like watching a cat play with a mouse that’s already dead.
There’s a lot of focus on the fancy clothes and the fancy manners. It reminded me a bit of the stuffy, high-society posturing you see in The Picture of Dorian Gray, but with way less soul-searching and way more eyebrow-wiggling. 🧐
The dialogue is thick. Sometimes it feels like they’re reciting poetry just to get from one side of the room to the other. There’s one scene where the artist character is just staring at a canvas for what feels like a week, and I swear the camera operator must have gotten a snack break during that take.
It’s not as intense as Beau Geste or as weirdly specific as some of those other dramas from the era. It just exists. It’s a bit of a relic, honestly. You can tell the movie *really* wants you to think the protagonist is clever, but I just wanted him to go take a nap.
Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it worth watching on a rainy afternoon when you don’t want to think too hard about the plot? Maybe. Just don’t expect it to change your life. ☕