This is one of the wonders of Paris, I imagine, or at least of being rich in Paris: Even your misery plays like a fairy tale. In Avenue Montaigne, miserable souls are as common as raindrops, and each one is a portrait of privileged existentialism.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 26, 2007

A film that seeks to amble it way towards resolution and which offers a few insights and smiles along the way.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 20, 2007

The movie is as airy as a spun-sugar dessert, but Thompson's observations on the artistic life are both affectionate and knowing: Beauty and wealth, though inevitably compelling, are appreciated as means to humane ends, not goals in themselves.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 20, 2007

Watching the charming Avenue Montaigne makes you realize not only how much we miss when mainstream French films are not on the movie menu, but how much we miss when American studios define 'romantic comedy' so strictly.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 13, 2007

Avenue Montaigne is a bon-bon for culture tourists.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 1, 2007

Thompson's crowd-pleaser makes up in refined schmaltz what it lacks in innovation or profundity.

| Apr 1, 2007

When it all wraps up as neatly as the treacliest Hollywood film, we don't feel cheated, but rather enjoy the satisfaction of a story resolved, and we're happy for each of the people we have spent our hour with.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 31, 2007

If you're not going to Paris this spring -- and let's face it, so few of us are -- the next best thing might be Avenue Montaigne.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Mar 29, 2007

Feather-light, Avenue Montaigne is lifted from mere pleasantness by its quirky character details.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 23, 2007

It made me feel like a doll, the grin plastered across my face when it was over as plastic and permanent as the one on any random couture coifed Barbie.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 23, 2007

That the film succeeds as well as it does despite a series of coincidences that strain credibility is a credit to a fine cast and a joie de vivre that pervades even the most implausible moments.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 16, 2007

How much you respond to its calculated charms depends largely on your response to the waif-in-the-big-city appeal of de France.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 15, 2007

Aside from pretty people behaving cutely, though, there's just not much here, and even devoted Francophiles may nod into their cafe crèmes.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 2, 2007

A fine cast and a realistic touch give the charming farce a sweetness and emotional intimacy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 1, 2007

The picture is very obviously crafted as a fable. Its characters are stereotypes at the beginning, but our focus sharpens as we watch them: They sneak out of the roles we've assigned to them and become people instead.

Full Review | Mar 1, 2007

It's formula stuff, to be sure, but full of feeling for the sweep of the past as well as for the unsettled, yearning present. Echoes of Juliette Gréco, Gilbert Bécaud and Charles Aznavour haunt the soundtrack.

| Mar 1, 2007

Avenue Montaigne, a delicately charming fable set in Paris, offers the kind of experience we secretly crave when we visit any great city: meaningful encounters with its people.

| Mar 1, 2007

Avenue Montaigne doesn't pretend to be deep, but it's precise and observant about the way people of privilege persist in defining themselves by what they lack or long for instead of what they have, or have done.

| Mar 1, 2007

It is entertaining, but beady-eyed in its efforts to please audiences attracted to the idea of an old-fashioned Gay Paree.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 23, 2007

There is even a shot of lovers embracing against the backdrop of an illuminated Eiffel Tower. How corny can it get? More than is probably good for you, but it does have the unfeignable virtue of charm.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 23, 2007