French Kiss

This was one of the best comedies of the 1990s - with While You Were Sleeping, There's Something about Mary, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Flirting with Disaster, perhaps When Harry Met Sally or Sleepless in Seattle.

It's a charming movie. I'm not particularly a Meg Ryan fan - (funny that I just named two of her movies in a top comedy list!). She's at her best here.

The movie is funny but has more heart than most comedies - the scenes with Luc's family are lovely and memorable - not at all overdone, just right. The movie's at its best when the principals are all together at Cannes - it becomes less humorous but very warmly romantic. The characters are so well written - there is even sympathy for Timothy Hutton's character. The chemistry between Ryan and Kline (which I wouldn't have believed before I saw it) is very much there. By the time Kevin Kline is singing La Mer over the last of the closing credits (after Louis Armstrong has sung La Vie en Rose), you'll want to see it again.

Kevin Kline is just magnificent - a quite real,interesting, amusing person is created. The Meg Ryan character's primness is irritating - but then one must see why Timothy Hutton found her so (comically, the movie's idea of primness is that she was deflowered at 18 not 13!).

You'll like it.

Don't ever say all writers are hacks. The writer of French Kiss, sitting next to Kline on the plane, has done a job from a perspective most people will not catch, and you have to give him credit for doing it. I am fairly sure both Ryan, Kline, Reno and the rest were aware of what was going on, but I am equally sure this flew totally over the heads of 99% of the US audiences. For this movie, amongst other things, is a sometimes not so subtle and other times very subtle cut-up on US tourists in Europe.

There are so many scenes which have this double entendre - if you get them it's hilarious and heart-warming, if you don't get them, then explaining them will help nothing and serve only to enervate the narrator.

And the puns - I've witnessed people seeing this movie over and over and over and not getting them. After half a dozen viewings they suddenly go 'ah' and get it. This is good screen writing.

Kline's Parisian sounds spot on. Suspicion is he was coached - and excellently - in the unique 'gutter' accent found in the city of light.

This film has everything. It's not your classical 'meets cute' but - where does one begin? Can one ever end?

This mini-review has gone on for several hundred words already and the iteration has not started.

Get it!

This movie is sheer unabashed indulgence...indulgence in romantic comedies, in Meg Ryan, in France and a whole lot of other things and people!! I've seen this movie in parts lots of times, never really got to sit and see the whole film at one go. The dialogues are witty enough and the acting credible enough to make anyone want to sit and watch it again! Kevin Kline is superb in the role. For him it was more than just a matter of knowing French and then putting on a French accent. He seems to have undergone a transformation of sorts to really look credible as a French wine-maker cum a very convincing con man! Meg Ryan seemed one the whole more made-up than any other movie I've seen her in. But her expressions were as usual capital, really hilarious! Her reaction after eating too much cheese on the train left me in splits! There she is praising the French for having 452 types of cheese and the next instant she can't even bear the mention of cows! Some of her angst-ridden outbursts against men were totally understandable!

Timothy Hutton is one of those underrated actors who seriously deserves more challenging roles. The only other films I've seen him in are 'Ordinary People'(in which he was really brilliant. Thoroughly deserved his Oscar) and 'Mr. and Mrs. Loving'(in which her did a good turn as a Southerner in the 1950s-60s who gets married to a black woman against the law in South). He's a treat to watch in 'French Kiss' as the basically confused, prone-to-chauvinism Charlie! It would be an understatement to say that I liked the locales. France is one THE most beautiful countries and I'm glad they didn't restrict the location to Paris. I enjoyed more the part in Luc's village, complete with Ryan's witty sarcasm: "Fester, Fester, Rot, Rot. Poor you, you live over here"! This movie is not for the wine buffs('A Walk in the Clouds' with its mixture of wine and romance is recommended). It's for those who like romantic comedies and France! C'est irresistible!

Oh, and the song 'Dream A Little Dream' in French is one more sure selling point!

A Francophile will probably like this film. I did. Meg Ryan plays a woman who's on the verge of marrying a Canadian, so she's denounced her American citizenship. She's also afraid of flying so she stays home while her fiance goes to Paris on business. Things take a turn for the worse when he calls, saying he's met the woman of his dreams and he's staying in France.

Frantic to get back her man, she boards a plane. Next to her sits a French thief, beautifully played by Kevin Kline, who has problems of his own, most notably how to smuggle a diamond necklace out of the country.

It's a character-driven plot that Cary Grant would have loved - two people who are seemingly so "repelled" by each other but all they need are the right elements to fall in love. I'm generally not a fan of the romantic-comedy, but the French setting sucked me in as did a supporting role played by the always excellent Jean Reno.

As for the authenticity of Kline's accent, I had a good friend from France who claimed it was "formidable." So there.

Very entertaining and worth a watch.

Want more French choices? Try "Frantic" with Harrison Ford, it's Hitchcockian; "Green Card," who can resist Depardieu?; and my all-time favorite Meg Ryan film "Addicted to Love." It's a great black comedy and it has the sizzlingly sexy Tcheky Karyo. "C'est magnifique!"

To begin with, Meg Ryan's fear of flying and the procedures she goes through to deal with it are cute. And the relationship with Meg and Timothy Hutton is entirely believable.

Once she is on the plane, going to Paris, Kevin Kline appears and introduces himself and distracts her from the takeoff. Kevin Kline really proves himself in this movie, or at least shows how good he is at accents. I was a French major in college and have been to Paris and seen much of France. His mannerisms are right on.

The things that happen once they are in Paris are 1) funny and 2) move the story along. The train trip that they have to take is another enjoyable section. And Meg learns that she really likes the cheese!

Once she sees the vineyard and begins to learn more about Kevin Kline's character, the story gets under way nicely. All in all, it's a very enjoyable time.