Salt Lake Tribune Review
When Pierre (
Romain Duris), an exuberant Parisian dancer, falls ill and needs a heart transplant, his frazzled big sister Élise (
Juliette Binoche) moves in with her three kids to care for him. From his balcony, Pierre looks out on his neighborhood, and writer-director
Cédric Klapisch follows the characters he sees: a gorgeous student (Melanie Laurent, from "Inglourious Basterds") and her smitten professor (
Fabrice Luchini), the professor's architect brother (
François Cluzet), and a garbage man (
Zinedine Soualem) trying to get his brother into France from Cameroon. The movie's big-hearted message is that everyone in a big city is intimately connected to everyone else, if you just follow the links -- a theme Klapisch explored before in "L'auberge Espagnole" and its sequel, "Russian Dolls." Here, he keeps too many threads going at once, with weaker subplots stealing time and energy away from the better ones.
— Sean P. Means
The rundown: An ailing dancer (
Romain Duris), cared for by his sister (
Juliette Binoche), sees his neighbors' lives play out in this convoluted story set in the City of Lights. Subtitled; 130 minutes. (SPM)
Synopsis: While waiting for a heart transplant that could save his life, Pierre has his world invaded by his sister Elise and her three children.The growing awareness of his impending mortality, as well as the re-discovery of his sister and her life, gives Pierre a very different sense of how he might spend the time still left to him. Meanwhile, a respected professor, Roland Verneuil, hopes for one more great romance in his life, while Jean, a vendor at an open-air market, wonders what life is left for him now that he's split from his wife—even though they continue to work together each day.
