City of Blinding Lights

First, we went to Paris, and now, we’re off to New York – at the movies, at least thanks to New York, I Love You.

A couple of years ago, a group of talented writers and directors and actors delivered Paris, Je T’aime, a lovely film about life and love in the City of Lights.

New York, I Love You is also a series of vignettes – obviously set in the Big Apple – this time helmed by directors including Brett Ratner, Mira Nair, Shekhar Kapur, and Natalie Portman, who pulls double-duty by also acting in Nair’s segment as a Hasidic bride harboring secret longings.

Each entry in this travelogue is named after its director, as opposed to the neighborhood in which the action is set, like in Paris, Je T’aime, which I thought was kind of ill-advised.

But I’ll get to that.

The strength of the project lies in the infinite charm and appeal of the city they like to call Gotham. New York is a city so nice they named it twice, after all.

Wandering around its streets, from SoHo to the Upper West Side, you can run into the likes of, among others, Chris Cooper and Robin Wright Penn; Bradley Cooper and Drea de Matteo; Portman; Rachel Bilson, Hayden Christensen, and Andy Garcia; Ethan Hawke and Maggie Q; Anton Yelchin, Olivia Thirlby, and James Caan; and Orlando Bloom and Christina Ricci.

Isn’t it just swell?

The movie’s main weakness, though, is it feels a bit rushed, and surprisingly draggy in its middle, in its quieter moments. Also, by trying to have certain characters randomly appear as essentially passersby in others’ stories, the movie hammers home the notion that everyone in NYC is a potential Kevin Bacon with his or her own six-degrees-of-separation thing going. Which is not true – there’s only one Kevin Bacon.

Anyway, standouts are Ratner’s segment starring Yelchin, Thirlby, and Caan, and featuring a cameo by Gossip Girl star Blake Lively. As Yelchin got lucky with a more-than-meets-the-eye Thirlby, I was reminded of the city’s anything-can-happen vibe (except that which I mentioned a moment ago...although I look forward to being proven wrong one day), which was captured amusingly, nicely, and, above all, smartly.

Seeing Chris Cooper and Wright Penn flirt up a storm in Yvan Attal’s was super-sexy, full of possibility and just a little naughty. Just like the New York itself. And seeing Joshua Marston’s story, starring Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman as old Brooklynites, was a pleasure that answered the age-old question of what it’s all about: love (and laughter-inducing oldies but goodies).

New York, I Love You is dedicated to director Anthony Minghella, who passed away shortly before he could shoot the stirringest segment of them all starring Julie Christie, Shia LaBeouf, and John Hurt. Kapur replaced him “with Anthony in my heart and in presence of his soul.”

I think the late director would be pleased with the end result, but, perhaps, he would also have suggested to name each vignette after its neighborhood because it would’ve invited the movie’s audience in a bit more. Not everybody’s familiar with New York, but everybody wants to be. A little direction would’ve been nice.

My Rating ***

Photo: Vivendi Entertainment.