Filmed in Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon's signature whimsical style, LOST IN PARIS stars the filmmakers as a small-town Canadian librarian and a strangely seductive, oddly egotistical vagabond. When Fiona's (Gordon) orderly life is disrupted by a letter of distress from her 88-year-old Aunt Martha (delightfully portrayed by Academy Award (R)-nominee Emmanuelle Riva) who is living in Paris, Fiona hops on the first plane she can and arrives only to discover that Martha has disappeared. In an avalanche of spectacular disasters, she encounters Dom (Abel), the affable, but annoying tramp who just won't leave her alone. Replete with the amazing antics and intricately choreographed slapstick that has come to define Abel and Gordon's work, LOST IN PARIS is a wondrously fun and hectic tale of peculiar people finding love while lost in the City of Lights.
... the story of a Canadian naif (Gordon) who is stranded in Paris and falls for a local Chaplinesque tramp (Abel) is told with such broad strokes (lots of double-takes and achingly obvious pratfalls) that it eventually becomes wearisome.
Lost in Paris is an indie film...that pays an homage to the days of the silent film star, Charlie Chaplin, through the antics of their lead characters.
Cruel comic mishaps may be this movie's raison d'être, but they are softened at every turn by the gentle humanity of the city's inhabitants, and by the unspoken sense that everything will turn out fine in the end.
Unfortunately, for all the photogenic Parisian trappings, the riverside tango and Eiffel Tower slapstick, the laborious jollity of the latest film from Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel never takes flight.