New York, I Love You

New York, I Love You is a collective work of eleven short films, with each segment running around 10 minutes long. The shorts don't exactly relate but they all have something in common, love. Every short is about finding love, either if it's about a couple or just two strangers chitchatting.The film stars an ensemble cast, among them Shia LaBeouf, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Orlando Bloom, Chris Cooper, Andy Garcia, Christina Ricci, Irrfan Khan, Robin Wright Penn, Julie Christie, Ethan Hawke, Bradley Cooper, Rachel Bilson, and Anton Yelchin. With such a stellar cast and such an interesting premise, I was expecting a tremendous film; the problem is New York I Love You doesn't add up. It remains the sum of its parts. Some of the segments are funny, original and interesting but others are so meaningless (Orlando Bloom/Christina Ricci and Ethan Hawke/Maggie Q segments) that it's appalling. The film is definitely uneven and has a very experimental tone. Story-wise, it seems like something a few film students could put together. Having said that, the film has some great moments as well, one of the best being the segment about an old couple, played by Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman, walking along in Brooklyn on their 67th wedding anniversary. And it's moments like this, that made me as a viewer, wish the film was more consistent, because, there's a lot of potential here. But, as unsatisfying as the overall story ends up being, for me, the cinematography and soundtrack saved the all thing. The editing was perfect, the way the film was shot was very impressive and the ethereal soundtrack, couldn't be more fitting. In the end, New York I Love You feels like an experimental film, and as in most experiences there's highs and lows. It's how one looks at the film as a whole that will determine if he enjoys it or not. It might be worthwhile for some and a waste of time for others.

7/10

An American take on Paris, je t'aime, in which several shorts tell the tales of lovers within New York City.

My interest in this film was mild, it boasted a large cast and several directors, but I was more interested in Paris, je t'aime. New York, I Love You comes off as a poor attempt at trying to show talent and style. The film is good, but not as good as it should, or wants to be. I found it to be very uneven with each short and I truly liked only one of them.

Instead of going into each short, beat by beat, I'll highlight the ones I care enough to talk about, for better or worse. We start off with Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha, each getting into a cab and having a small argument over which street to take. This is our introduction to this film, it's interesting and mildly funny, but offers us no insight into either character or their situation. We go on through other shorts, involving a bald Natalie Portman and lazy boy Orlando Bloom. I found that a lot of the shorts had characters that I just didn't have interest in. For a short, one of the main objectives is to grab the viewer's attention with either a character or situation, many of these shorts fail to do this.

The one short that I absolutely loved, is also the most basic one. Two people who are in love walk down the street together. Cloris Leachman and Eli Wallach are perfect and in their old age outshine everyone else in this piece. Their short is soft and heartfelt. The only true love story in this whole piece. While other pieces were interesting and entertaining (Maggie Q and Ethan Hawke) none had the presence of Leachman and Wallach.

As mentioned before, some shorts are uneven and try to pull small twists here and there. Most of them are obvious (Ratner's piece & Cooper/Wright Penn) but I give them credit for trying. Everyone does a decent job in their roles, as I mentioned, this is a pretty big cast. Shia LaBeouf stars in the oddest segment of them all, along with the beautiful Julie Christie. It'll have some people scratching their heads, as it seems to be the odd one out of the group.

One big problem is that the film doesn't showcase New York enough, it should almost be a third character, but instead it's simply the backdrop. The film suffers from the lack of ethnicity that should be present. This is New York after all, but instead we get the beautiful cast, it doesn't feel real.

The film is pretty much hit or miss and nothing jumps out at you as a wow moment. Each segment is directed well, but nothing memorable. I read each segment was given a short amount of time to film everything, that has its pros and cons. Why not take more time to craft everything?

The second installment in the I LOVE YOU series appears at first to be a mere variety-pack of sad-funny vignettes but occasionally it veers into territory explored by such other recent films as Paul Haggis's CRASH or Michael Hanecke's CODE INCONNU, wherein disparate inhabitants of a large city cross paths, not only affecting each other's lives in unexpected ways, but feeding into a larger overall story.

Most of these New York City stories manage to wrap up with a twist. This O. Henry-style surprise element is the structural key that gives several segments their sense of closure, especially in Yvan Attal's two-part entry about encounters between smokers outside a restaurant. In one encounter, Ethan Hawke as a fast-talking young writer brazenly tries to pick up a woman (Maggie Q) with unexpected results; in the other, Chris Cooper and Robin Wright Penn share some tantalizing conversation with an equally unexpected resolution.

Almost as good are a strange prom date between an awkward boy (Anton Yelchin) and the wheelchair-bound daughter (Olivia Thirlby) of an eccentric, pushy pharmacist (James Caan) and a slick bit wherein Hayden Christensen as a smart alecky pickpocket goes up against Andy Garcia as a college professor who turns the tables on him in the manner of Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshall in the 1932 classic TROUBLE IN PARADISE.

Standing apart from all other segments is the lovely character study of a married couple (Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman) bickering gently as they walk to the seashore to commemorate their 63rd wedding anniversary – beautiful acting by two old masters.

In Allen Hughes's segment there is some excellent internal monologue writing by Alexandra Cassavetes and Stephen Winter about two insecure people on their way to their second date with each other, wonderfully enacted by Drea De Matteo and Bradley Cooper.

Other segments - including Mira Nair's with Natalie Portman as a Hassidic Jew momentarily smitten with a Jain diamond merchant (Irrfan Khan) on the eve of her wedding, and Shekhar Kapur's with Julie Christie as an aging singer who checks into an ethereal hotel staffed by a crippled Shia LeBouef and a haggard John Hurt – have their moments, but peter off into nowhere. Too bad the reunion of Christie and Hurt almost exactly 40 years after their only other co-starring film, IN SEARCH OF GREGORY, couldn't at least have shown them together clearly, from the front, in the same frame, just once.

Other than one episode in Brighton Beach and one in Chinatown, the action takes place in well-heeled sections of Manhattan. The black and Puerto-Rican population is barely represented, though the age range of subjects covers about 7 through about 90. The boroughs of the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island are ignored completely. Few of the stories concern themselves with themes or situations unique to New York. Most of them could just as easily take place in London or Berlin or Buenos Aires or Tokyo. But the rapidly shifting focus, the large and interesting cast and occasional sharp writing, keep one reasonably entertained despite the occasional misfires.

A few years ago Paris je t'aime, or Paris, I Love You came out featuring some amazing talents like the Coen brothers, Alfonso Cuaron, Gus Van Sant, and Alexander Payne. It consisted of 20 very short films, each with their own unique style and storyline, only they all shared the same setting of Paris. Three years later, another group of filmmakers and writers, including the late, great Anthony Minghella, decided to make a film consisting of short vignettes called New York, I Love You.

The idea is nice. It's endearing how a group of people can come together and present several different stories about a place that they love.

(Pause for nice, smiling moment)

Okay, back to the film. Now that we can agree that this is a nice idea, I think it's time to get serious. Much like Paris je t'aime, there are parts of this film that are nice. Still, overall I can't help but disagree with the construction of this film. I thought the stories were clever, but if I liked the story I didn't like the acting, or if I liked the acting, the directing was off. It was a never-ending stream of likes and dislikes.

There are some interesting segments. Brett Ratner's segment about a teenager trying to go to prom is clever and entertaining, starring Anton Yelchin, Olivia Thirlby, and James Caan. I thought Caan gave the most honest performance in the whole film. He had the look and most of all the sound of a New Yorker. I was even impressed with Natalie Portman's segment which follows a man looking after a young girl in Central Park.

There was nothing that blew me away like some of the parts of Paris, je t'aime. There was nothing here that made me say, "Wow!" For a film like this nice just doesn't cut it. I can forgive a few bad shorts for one or two really good ones. At least I can take something away from the film. I all took away from this were the various settings that New York City has to offer.

Making a compilation film is risky. One bad egg can spoil the rest, or in this case a lot of mediocre eggs can make for a bland film. New York, I Love You has a lot of potential, but doesn't pull it off.

A dozen stories. Ten filmmakers. 103 minutes. If you do the math, you will draw the same conclusion I did - that there isn't much time for a viewer to make an emotional connection with every episode presented in this all-star 2009 omnibus tribute to New York. An eclectic group of global filmmakers, some well-known, others on the verge, had to meet certain requirements to make the final cut - they were given only 24 hours to shoot, a week to edit, and the result had to reflect a strong sense of a particular NYC neighborhood. The cumulative effect makes for a moody portrait of the city through various couplings, but due to the contrivance of its structure, the film falls short in bringing a deeper emotional resonance to the themes the creators want to convey.

With a couple of key exceptions, the film appears to be more of a valentine to Lower Manhattan. Consequently, there is a fashionably edgy look to the short stories. Israeli-born French director Yvan Attal epitomizes this feeling in two episodes. The first deals with an aggressively talkative writer (an irritating Ethan Hawke) throwing a barrage of romantic and sexual overtures at a sleek Asian woman who appears to have heard it all (Maggie Q). The other is marginally better, focusing on a chance conversation outside a restaurant between a woman taking a cigarette break (an effortlessly sexy Robin Wright Penn) and a man intrigued by her emotional availability (Chris Cooper). Both have O. Henry-type twist endings that make them ultimately entertaining.

A couple of other entries feel more gimmicky by comparison. Brett Ratner's mostly comic entry features Anton Yelchin as a naïve high-school student and Olivia Thirlby as his unexpected prom date with James Caan as her pushy pharmacist father. Mira Nair directed a flat culture-clash encounter between two savvy souls - a Hassid woman about to marry (Natalie Portman) and a Jain diamond dealer (Irrfan Khan) - who become mutually intrigued by their price negotiation meeting. Other episodes feel even more cursory. Portman wrote and directed a brief episode focused on an ebullient toddler (Taylor Geare) and her father (Carlos Acosta) having fun together in Central Park, highlighted by a brief dance performance from Acosta at the end (he is a Cuban-born principal dancer for the Royal Ballet). Chinese director Jiang Wen led Hayden Christensen, Andy Garcia and Rachel Bilson on an empty roundelay of deception and humiliation among thieves at a bar.

Japanese director Shunji Iwai was at the helm of a slight episode featuring Orlando Bloom as a frantic musician working against deadline, while Turkish director Faith Akin shares a brief story of obsession with Uğur Yücel as a solitary artist who wants to paint the face of a local Chinese herbalist (Shu Qi). The entry from Allen Hughes (of the Hughes Brothers) consists mostly of a continuing voice-over of two regretful lovers (Bradley Cooper, Drea de Matteo) hesitant to follow up on their passionate one-night stand. The oddest, most dispiriting entry comes from Shekhar Kapur who directed a script from the late Anthony Minghella (to whom the film is dedicated). It stars Julie Christie as a guest returning to a posh Fifth Avenue hotel where she bonds with a palsied, Slovak-accented bellboy played by an overly sensitive Shia LaBeouf. The nature of their relationship is never really divulged, but it ends on a surreal note of little consequence.

Directed and written by Joshua Marston, the best episode is perhaps the least ambitious as it features Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman as an aged, bickering couple on their way to the boardwalk in Coney Island for their 63rd anniversary. The reassuring way she places her head on his shoulder is easily the most touching moment in the film. All in all, this stylish hodgepodge will appeal mostly to those who are drawn to the short story format. Benoît Debie's sharp cinematography at least brings a consistent sheen to the film as it tethers the various story lines to a New York that feels mired in a cinematic fantasy. I just think Woody Allen's "Manhattan" executes on the same approach far more effectively. The extras on the 2010 DVD include a handful of additional scenes (though not the two deleted segments directed by Scarlett Johansson and Andrei Zvyagintsev), interviews with five of the directors and the original theatrical trailer.