New York, I Love You – Review
New York feels like the capital of the world. It’s so well-known that people who have never been to the city, feel like they know the city, inside and out. It seems like a logical place for the quasi-sequel to Paris, Je t’aime (Paris, I Love You), an anthology film that told stories about Paris. Anthology films are tricky to make as a whole, work. You usually get a collective mix of good, ho-hum, and bad shorts. In Paris, Je t’aime they asked a slew of filmmakers to tell a short film around 10 or so minutes, about what makes Paris so great. Obviously, when one thinks of Paris, love is usually what they think of. So what do you think of when someone says New York?
Well, when I think of New York, I think of strong people, think accents, the rudeness, the cesspool of crime and prostitution, violence, and a place where anyone can make it. That might be a stereotypical point of view on the Big Apple, but New York, I Love You if anything, is a film dedicated to the city and why people love the city. So I don’t feel bad having this clichéd view on The City That Never Sleeps because I learned of the city through film. Think of all of the great New York filmmakers and their stories in New York. Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, or Sidney Lumet to name a few, but through these artists work, did we not come to know and love New York?
That what makes New York, I Love You so disappointing, is that the filmmakers they did get to make shorts for the film, really dropped the ball on making films that told the tell of what New York is. Apparently, they felt like they needed to show the positive side of New York, as almost every short deals with love, love lost, or the possibility of love. This worked splendidly for Paris, Je t’aime, since Paris is the Capital of Love in the world, but even then, that film had tales of violence, mystery, and even a few horror elements mixed in. So why didn’t they do that for this? New York, I Love You at times felt like a propaganda piece, trying to sell us on how wonderful New York is.
Despite this failed exercise on showing all aspects of the city, as a film based on a city should have been, there are a few nice ideas and segments in here to enjoy. One short has a smooth talking Ethan Hawke trying to impress Maggie Q with his ability to find the G-spot, only to end on a funny punchline. The film’s ending short with Eli Wallach, directed by Joshua Marston, has two old people walking slowly through the city, complaining on their family and skateboarding punks, that is a delightfully segment. But you know, as a whole, when the film’s best segment is about a boy finding love from a wheelchair bound Olivia Thirlby, who might not be as chair ridden as he thought, was directed by Bret Ratner. New York Stories is ain’t.
Structurally, this film is different than Paris, Je t’aime, as the latter film was just a series of unrelated shorts, where this has like five shorts that interconnect, almost at times like Crash. It just doesn’t work as well, as it did the first time with Paris, Je t’aime and was a big missed opportunity. The funny little elements the film did have are undone by the constant use of a punchline joke and a few odd segments that don’t make sense. I don’t go to New York for primarily love. I go with a dream to make it big, in a city that is as easily loved and is it hated. Crime, gangs, rudeness, was no where to be found, and as stereotypical as that is of me, isn’t that New York?
Rating: 
