Pierre (played by Romain Duris) is an aspiring dancer with a debilitating heart disease that is likely to kill him in the near future. The only person he can confide in is his sister (Juliette Binoche) who moves into his apartment with her children to care for him while he waits for a transplant.
Pierre’s overwhelming thought in his state of illness is that there are so many people around him who are living out their lives and stories, and as each of those stories unfolds the viewer is brought back for an update on Pierre’s plight.
All around the dying man are an assortment of characters living out their lives: the university professor entertaining inappropriate thoughts about one of his students, two brothers whose father dies, a couple becoming parents, people with jobs, people with plans, and they all have one thing in common – mortality. Pierre isn’t the only one who’s living under a death sentence, but he’s the only one aware of it.
But there’s one exception to the rule: Paris.
Paris in all her glory remains eternal, universal. She lives and breathes and is the context in which everyone else lives out their little lives.
Binoche and Duris are both superb, but Paris scores by just being herself. Even Binoche’s ever-increasing beauty is put in the shade by the atmospheric cityscape that is Paris.
A very appropriately named film.
