Avenue Montaigne
3 stars
Cecile De France, Valerie Lemercier, Albert Dupontel
Directed by Daniele Thompson
Rated PG-13
Opens Friday
On the hoity-toity side of Paris sits Avenue Montaigne, which is host to an upscale theater, an auction house, a grand concert hall ... and a quaint little café, where a young woman named Jessica (De France) talks her way into a waitressing job. “I’ve always been fond of luxury,” her grandmother tells her, and Jessica gets her first taste as she serves a variety of famous actors, musicians and art collectors. But as she intersects with the lives of the artists, she quickly discovers that the downside to artistic luxury is all the artistic neuroses that come with it.
She meets a soap opera celebrity preparing to perform a play, who winces at the praise of her adoring fans and dreams of garnering more serious film work. She meets a concert pianist who feels stifled by the uptight atmosphere of his black-tie performances and would much rather play to the masses. She meets an aging art collector, who is struggling with his decision to sell his entire collection at auction. Despite their differing ages, they all seem to be facing midlife crises, which Jessica observes with wide-eyed fascination.
It should come as no surprise that the auction, the play and the concert all take place on the same climactic night. While that must create quite the parking nightmare on Avenue Montaigne, it does deliver a satisfying third act, in which each character predictably conquers his anxieties with humorous, uplifting and occasionally moving results—all while Jessica keeps everyone well-fed.
In her waitress capacity, Jessica serves to introduce us to the various woes of the troubled artists, and with her adorable, pixie-haired appearance and relentlessly upbeat, innocent attitude, she’s undeniably charming, but she’s just sort of ... there. Her own plot thread culminates in a last-minute, unlikely romance, and she has little impact on anything else that happens. Then again, the alternative would be to have her imparting street-wise wisdom with every take-out order, making her instrumental in each angst-ridden artist’s revelation. In a movie that already borders on contrived, that would probably bring the proceedings dangerously close to the realm of cornball.
As it stands, the movie is pure fluff. The likeable, quirky characters, breathtaking Parisian vistas and dashes of wry wit amount to little more than the superficial luxuries that Jessica admires throughout the film. But as Jessica’s grandmother points out, there’s nothing wrong with being fond of luxury.