There are those comedies that are a good watch once, and that's it. However, there are those few romantic comedies that capture your attention and the humor is able to stay with you for a long time. This is one of those films. Narrated by several of the characters in the film, it has a special quality one can never forget.
From beginning to end, the narrators tell the love story of how the two leads meet, fall in love, and have troubles. Around four or five years is covered in the whole two hour piece. It's comedically written, but then, Crystal is the genius behind that, and it was well executed acting and directing wise.
Anyone who enjoys beautiful cinematography and great lines in a film, you'll enjoy Billy Crystal's "Forget Paris".
Plot summary
Mickey Gordon is a basketball referee who travels to France to bury his father. Ellen Andrews is an American living in Paris who works for the airline he flies on. They meet and fall in love, but their relationship goes through many difficult patches.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
December 06, 2020 at 06:46 AM
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Certainly not just a one time watch...
Not great, but good for what it is: an entertaining romantic comedy.
This movie is interesting and unique, in the sense that it focuses on love AFTER marriage, and not before.
Billy Crystal plays a basketball referee who travels to Paris in order to bury his recently-deceased father. However alone the way the casket is lost and he's stuck in Paris, where he meets another single woman (Debra Winger) who's under similarly unfortunate circumstances.
They go out, have a fun time, and then resume their normal lives. Crystal goes back to basketball in the US but soon finds he can't concentrate and keeps thinking about his relationship.
Eventually they reunite and get married but it's an uphill struggle.
The movie kind of reminded me of "GoodFellas" (!) due to its structure and how it focused on the downfall of the marriage. Like Ray Liotta's marriage in "GoodFellas" it's not all peachy like most Hollywood films portray them as being.
My favorite sequence is when Crystal is transporting his semen to a hospital and gets stopped by a traffic cop. Some very funny moments like this, as well as good chemistry between the stars and an interesting narrative structure, make it a worthwhile - if not particularly memorable - romantic comedy, better than many others in its genre. At least it's entertaining and believable.
It's like me: witty and engaged
Is there a specific reason why Crystal has not directed more often? I'm feeling like starting a petition and sending a copy of this to anyone who would potentially sign it. He, Mantegna, Kavner(the three reasons I gave it the much-deserved chance), Winger and Stevenson are fantastic. Their performances and the timing, spot-on. This is incredibly funny, in the clever, dry, not trying too hard kind of way. The humor does have a few gross moments, however, apart from that, it's all hilarious, if you're into the sarcastic, at times cynical, type of material. Hardly any gags or jokes fall flat, throughout it. It's well-acted, and the characters are good. In addition, it's highly involving, and you find yourself caring, not just laughing, during this. Part of the emotion comes from the honesty of this, that it isn't your usual romantic comedy of "boy who looks like a male model meets female lead who appears to have stepped right off the train from Glamourville", and so on and so forth. This has ups *and* downs, and goes beyond the superficial level of the Hollywood pap that we all know, without forgetting what genre of film it is. The story is imaginative and holds surprises. The writing is top-notch. Do note that this is not for kids, the rating the MPAA gave it makes sense. There is language and themes herein. I recommend this to any fan of anyone who was part of creating it, Billy in particular. 7/10