The idea worked, more or less, with “Paris, Je t’Aime,” that anthology of tiny little vignettes in the City of Light. Why shouldn’t it work for New York?
It should have, and it doesn’t. “New York, I Love You” is a boring dud, a movie that not only doesn’t catch the particular charms of the Big Apple but actually makes the city look like kind of a drag.
As with the Paris film, this is a collection of stories from different directors, woven together with a mild connecting thread. Any movie like this is a grab bag, but this one’s baggier than most.
One of the better segments comes from the gifted German filmmaker Fatih Akin; it’s a slim story of a painter (Ugur Yucel) who becomes fascinated by a young herbalist (Shu Qi, from “The Transporter”).
Most of the stories seem to lack endings. Jiang Wen’s anecdote about a pickpocket (Hayden Christensen) sparring over a young woman (Rachel Bilson) with her older, married beau (Andy Garcia) is all right, but I’m not entirely sure how it worked out.
Natalie Portman manages to get a great deal of emotion into Mira Nair’s five-minute sequence about a young Orthodox Jewish woman on the eve of her wedding, who has a conversation with a jeweler (Irrfan Khan, late of “Slumdog Millionaire”). Portman also directs one extremely brief sequence.
Chris Cooper and Robin Penn Wright play a couple of cigarette smokers sharing a moment while sneaking a butt on the sidewalk; Ethan Hawke and Maggie Q are paired in a similar situation, but with a much different payoff (and a decent punch line).
Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman have an inconsequential conversation while strolling to Coney Island, a scene that mostly reminds you how sharp these actors are.
The crassest segment comes from director Brett Ratner, a story about a prom night prank featuring Anton Yelchin and James Caan.
The roster of familiar names keeps going: Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie, Orlando Bloom, Christina Ricci. Most people are around for just a few minutes — in some cases, just a single scene.
Which would be fine if something fun or illuminating happened along the way. But this movie looks dreary and feels depressed, despite the occasional character insisting what a great town New York is.
There’s no shortage of New York’s tendency to love itself on display here. But based only on the evidence of this film, it’s difficult to understand the ardor.
“New York, I Love You”
A bunch of stories from different filmmakers about the Big Apple, few of which conjure up the magic of the place or build to anything at all. A decent roster of actors (Ethan Hawke, Julie Christie, Natalie Portman, Shia LaBeouf et al.) passes through, but nobody makes a deep impression, and the result is boredom.
Rated: R for language, nudity
Showing: Alderwood Mall, Meridian, Thornton Place
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