Lost in Paris

Lost in Paris has a long way to go in prov­ing itself giv­en the rar­i­ty of phys­i­cal com­e­dy in mod­ern movies. This whim­si­cal mis­ad­ven­tures star­ring Fiona Gor­don and Dominique Abel as two bum­bling odd­balls (who share their own names) in search of an escapee aunt man­ages to dis­card any con­cerns of out-dat­ed­ness, bring­ing a con­tem­po­rary twist to Chaplin’s charm­ing Lit­tle Tramp act.

Much of this is as a result of the chem­istry between its leads: Fiona’s anx­i­ety and fish-out-of-water neu­roti­cism stands in stark con­trast to Dom’s impetu­ous antics. The nat­ur­al con­nec­tion between them caries the humour through­out. This con­nec­tion occa­sion­al­ly fal­ters, if only as a result of the film’s abun­dance of gags. The late French leg­end Emmanuelle Riva also shines as the elder­ly fugi­tive Martha, nev­er slip­ping into the trapped-youth cliché the elder­ly are usu­al­ly forced to endure. That said, some incon­sis­ten­cies arise when her shrewd approach to escape stands in oppo­si­tion to the senil­i­ty she is intro­duced to at the outset.

The visu­al approach adds to the jovial air with its vibrant use of colour. The frame is speck­led with lush splash­es of red and green that breathe an almost car­toon­ish life into the pale streets of Paris. This quaint aes­thet­ic is appar­ent from the off, with Fiona’s frigid Cana­di­an home ren­dered in charm­ing minia­ture, the inte­ri­ors of her office almost stagey in their con­struc­tion. The score also helps to main­tain the film’s buoy­an­cy, com­bin­ing an array of clas­si­cal piano com­po­si­tions rem­i­nis­cent of silent cin­e­ma with more cur­rent musi­cal ele­ments that bleed into the sto­ry itself. These bring with them a whiff of play­ful aban­don when placed oppo­site a broad­ly old-fash­ioned soundtrack.

The film mis­steps in its final act. Though the gags and style keep up the care­free atti­tude, its even­tu­al­ly delves too deeply into gooey sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty in order to con­clude a sto­ry that oth­er­wise has a clear idea of its char­ac­ter and a deft­ness to its execution.