Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

trpdean What is marketed in the U.S. as "Avenue Montaigne", is a gentle, and entirely unoriginal, story of several people in the same film only because they go to the same restaurant and become acquainted with the same waitress. Is this as original or interesting as the normal Friends episode? No, but the characters are friendly, dealing with difficulties in their lives, and all have rather happy endings - so one is meant not to begrudge the film. But in truth it's not very good.Two characters stand out: the grandmother played by Suzanne Flon (whose name you will probably recognize) who died just after making the film, and the woman playing an actress who must display a great variety of moods, styles as we see her as a character in a staged Feydeau farce (and in rehearsals for that farce), as "herself" in the midst of "real life" career desperation, and again playing a different character in her popular television soap opera. Her range is impressive.The waitress tying the characters together is pleasant, has a pleasing figure - but in this role is rather forgettable. (Oh, there's also rather a surprise to see *** SPOILERS **** her character leap into bed with someone she's just met - the American audience is likely to be amazed since she's presented as this sweet character from the provinces - yet as she kisses this man, a man she just met, she simply begins removing her clothes for sex! Your mouth will drop open!).**** Spoilers END **** The film won't irritate - but it's unlikely to entertain either. See something else.

Roland E. Zwick Just how much you'll enjoy "Avenue Montaigne" - a lighter-than-air comic soufflé set in a picture-postcard-perfect Paris - may well depend on your level of interest in all things French and continental.Our tour guide for the occasion is a perpetually upbeat, pixie-haired waitress named Jessica who becomes both an observer of - and occasional participant in - the lives of some of the more colorful patrons who frequent the café at which she works. These include two people who produce art and one who consumes it: an unhappy concert pianist who has grown weary of playing music to elite audiences and yearns to rip off his tuxedo and tickle the ivories for the general public; a neurotic actress who is desperate to get off the popular primetime soap opera on which she appears and to land a role in a more "serious" movie (Sydney Pollack plays the American director who may just give her the chance to do that); and a terminally ill art collector who is slowly divesting himself of his massive collection, and who doesn't realize that his new "gold-digging" young girlfriend is, in fact, the former lover of his own semi-estranged son (ah, those French!).The first story cuts the deepest in terms of thematic richness and character development; the second is played mainly for broad laughs, while the third comes across as sketchy and underdeveloped despite the fact that it is the one that most directly involves the central character of the movie.Like many Gallic comedies, "Avenue Montaigne" often seems a bit too impressed with its own preciousness - a trifle too smug in its innate "Frenchness" - to be completely enjoyable. The characters often talk in annoyingly portentous terms about art, philosophy and love, even though they have nothing much new to say about any of those items.Still, the city itself is enchanting, the performers endearing, and the tone so lighthearted and playful that, even though the disparate elements of the story never coalesce into anything particularly meaningful or memorable, the movie goes down as smoothly as a glass of vintage Bordeaux on a moonlit cruise along the Seine.

Andres Zambrano Young Jessica (Cécile de France), fresh from the countryside where she cared for her dying grandmother, arrives in Paris and immediately gets a job at a traditionally male-staffed café on Avenue Montaigne. There, she becomes involved in the personal and professional lives of the performers working nearby, including an I-want-to-get-away-from here- classical pianist named Jean-François (Albert Dupontel) a TV soap actress named Catherine (Valérie Lemercier) and other famous people stationed on the Avenue as well. Avenue Montaigne gets lost in its on foam and portrays a callous aesthetic with B-list actors from France trying to prove they're worth a damn. While it is an enjoyable premise that starts out great, the foam from that cappuccino overtakes your appetite and spoils it deeply. The film is as frothy as they come, a 1 hr. 45 min. trip into the heat of the avenue and the annoyances of the characters, finally culminating in a "script- writer- gone-bad" ending which has that loathsome smell of Hollywood.

Boyo-2 I was in Paris for a week in 1994. It was a golden opportunity to travel - only $300. round trip for air fare!! - and I loved every single second of it. There is something about that city that I find completely inviting. I would move there in a heartbeat if everyone there would learn English so I don't have to learn French - I am kidding of course..but not really.With that in mind, I went to see this movie, expecting it to be everything that made me love being there, and it does not disappoint.Plot mainly centers around Jessica, who is at a crossroads in her life. She has no place to live and no job. She quickly gets a job in a café that traditionally hires only men. Other characters are gradually introduced .. all of them are at a crossroads of one kind or another.. the concert pianist who is sick of it, the actress who is employed on a soap opera and hates it, the art collector who is selling it all off, and others as well. She finds her way into their lives, in either a large or a small way, and soon finds herself in love with the son of the former art collector.I enjoyed the actress the most. She's kind of funny looking and has the funniest dialogue. She's in a play that she doesn't really want to be in, in addition to the soap, and is just having a hard time of all of it. She meets a director (Sydney Pollack) who she wants to work with but does not think she has the reputation necessary to get hired by him. Eventually they meet and then he is desperate to hire her.There is something so easy, so anything-is-possible quality about this movie and its characters that I find impossible to resist. Its not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination but I just cry "UNCLE", give in to its charms, and enjoy the hell out of it.