Director: Pascale Ferran
Year Released: 2014
Rating: 2.0
While on a business trip to Paris (to discuss a deal involving Dubai), American Gary Newman (Josh Charles) has some kind of epiphany/revelation - he decides he's leaving his job, his wife and his kids and going to just hang around Europe (I guess) while a maid (Anaïs Demoustier) in the Hilton he's staying at dreams of doing more than just cleaning up after guests. Supporters/defenders are assigning this a poetry I appear to be missing out on: of course the segment of the film in which Demoustier 'becomes' a bird and views the world from a naive, detached perspective is a marvelous moment (watch out for the cat!), but that doesn't compensate for the lack of responsibility on both parties (both Gary and her): Charles' smugness rankles (he ends his marriage and severs all ties via Skype and cell phone) while Demoustier shirks her duties as a student (which would, in effect, elevate her to a position higher than a clerk in a hotel), and neither appears admirable in the slightest. Basing a film on a Nelly Furtado song is never advised: this could have been called Shallow People.
