#34 Savoir Faire
14/10/20 19:10
Right then, let’s have un petit pop at Emily in Paris, shall we?
Everyone’s been so gushingly vitriolic, I figured it must be worth a peek, even though I’d really rather watch those Tik Tok videos where that woman recreates SATC scenes with her cat as Samantha. But it’s Darren Star, and it’s got Paris, and nice shoes, and Paris, and I didn’t really want to think too hard, just felt like kicking back with something pretty on in the background while I read the latest issue of House Beautiful. This fitted the bill. Oh, did it fit the bill… *rolls up sleeves*
Eh bien, mes amies, quelle horreur… To recap – in about four seconds, cheery American Emily Cooper moves from Chicago to Paris to pursue a job in social media at a French marketing firm, Savoir. This isn’t a long-held dream, and there’s no particular decision-making involved, despite a serious engaged-to-be-engaged boyfriend, and the fact that she doesn’t speak any French. She just ups sticks, rocks up at her rustique apartment and flings open the windows to relish the Parisian-garret vista. Then she sets up a new twittagram account and gains about twenty billion followers in a morning. A new continental life beckons, full of baguettes and elegantly knotted neckerchiefs. C’est si facile, n’est-ce pas?
So, Lily Collins (yes, Phil’s daughter), totters around the City of Light wearing the most vertiginous heels I’ve ever seen, dressed in a kind of tossed-together clothes-salad, which somehow manages to be both multi-layered AND way too flimsy for any kind of weather. I guess Carrie dressed like that too, but maybe she got away with it in New York – I remember her looking fairly silly in Paris as well. SJP also had quirkier looks, whereas Lily is impossibly, straightforwardly gorgeous – that kind of beauty that’s so extreme it becomes completely uninteresting. I like a flaw in a face, a touch of jolie-laide, you might say, but not the slightest imperfection mars Lily’s perfect visage. She’s also Anna Wintour whippet-thin, which is fine, except in this show, she’s apparently always eating – pain au chocolate, Camembert, market stall fodder, party canapés. She does go running sometimes, but not enough to sweat off her make-up, and that ‘ain’t gonna work off all those pastries, chérie.
No one likes her, because she doesn’t speak French and is also really annoying. They call her ‘La plouc’ (the hick) but ‘ravissante idiote’ might be closer to the mark. She keeps barging into her fit neighbour’s flat because she can’t get the hang of the floor numbers, which, rather than being adorably klutzy, is just plain dumb. She attempts cybersex with her boyfriend in Chicago with her duvet firmly tucked under her armpits. She is always waving her phone around and leaving her handbag on seats outside like she wants to be mugged. She never makes much effort to speak French, despite going to classes wearing a beret. Maybe she should sling some onions round her shoulders to complete the look?
And yet, inexplicably, she’s somehow hugely successful in her new role as social media whatsit, and gets retweeted by Brigitte Macron. So, these disdainful, cigarette-sucking Frenchies better shut up and listen, eh? Stop having such long lunches, and applaud Emily as she pitches her peppy marketing ideas in breezy American English. Apart from the odd vaguely sassy quip, the dialogue is clunky, the plots are ridicule, the characters are one-dimensional and Paris looks way too clean. The only way this show could possibly redeem itself would be if Emily suddenly discovered her inner polyglot halfway through the series and became so fluent in French that the last five episodes had to be completely subtitled. And if she put on a stone from all those croissants. Alas, we’re doomed to watch her flaunting her bony collarbones as she offers up ‘hilarious’ half-assed innuendos to impervious waiters. Ah mon Dieu, achèvez-moi, tout de suite.
Do I have anything good to say about this cream puff of a ‘comedy’ ‘drama’? Non. Did I gorb the whole series in four days? Mais oui.
Everyone’s been so gushingly vitriolic, I figured it must be worth a peek, even though I’d really rather watch those Tik Tok videos where that woman recreates SATC scenes with her cat as Samantha. But it’s Darren Star, and it’s got Paris, and nice shoes, and Paris, and I didn’t really want to think too hard, just felt like kicking back with something pretty on in the background while I read the latest issue of House Beautiful. This fitted the bill. Oh, did it fit the bill… *rolls up sleeves*
Eh bien, mes amies, quelle horreur… To recap – in about four seconds, cheery American Emily Cooper moves from Chicago to Paris to pursue a job in social media at a French marketing firm, Savoir. This isn’t a long-held dream, and there’s no particular decision-making involved, despite a serious engaged-to-be-engaged boyfriend, and the fact that she doesn’t speak any French. She just ups sticks, rocks up at her rustique apartment and flings open the windows to relish the Parisian-garret vista. Then she sets up a new twittagram account and gains about twenty billion followers in a morning. A new continental life beckons, full of baguettes and elegantly knotted neckerchiefs. C’est si facile, n’est-ce pas?
So, Lily Collins (yes, Phil’s daughter), totters around the City of Light wearing the most vertiginous heels I’ve ever seen, dressed in a kind of tossed-together clothes-salad, which somehow manages to be both multi-layered AND way too flimsy for any kind of weather. I guess Carrie dressed like that too, but maybe she got away with it in New York – I remember her looking fairly silly in Paris as well. SJP also had quirkier looks, whereas Lily is impossibly, straightforwardly gorgeous – that kind of beauty that’s so extreme it becomes completely uninteresting. I like a flaw in a face, a touch of jolie-laide, you might say, but not the slightest imperfection mars Lily’s perfect visage. She’s also Anna Wintour whippet-thin, which is fine, except in this show, she’s apparently always eating – pain au chocolate, Camembert, market stall fodder, party canapés. She does go running sometimes, but not enough to sweat off her make-up, and that ‘ain’t gonna work off all those pastries, chérie.
No one likes her, because she doesn’t speak French and is also really annoying. They call her ‘La plouc’ (the hick) but ‘ravissante idiote’ might be closer to the mark. She keeps barging into her fit neighbour’s flat because she can’t get the hang of the floor numbers, which, rather than being adorably klutzy, is just plain dumb. She attempts cybersex with her boyfriend in Chicago with her duvet firmly tucked under her armpits. She is always waving her phone around and leaving her handbag on seats outside like she wants to be mugged. She never makes much effort to speak French, despite going to classes wearing a beret. Maybe she should sling some onions round her shoulders to complete the look?
And yet, inexplicably, she’s somehow hugely successful in her new role as social media whatsit, and gets retweeted by Brigitte Macron. So, these disdainful, cigarette-sucking Frenchies better shut up and listen, eh? Stop having such long lunches, and applaud Emily as she pitches her peppy marketing ideas in breezy American English. Apart from the odd vaguely sassy quip, the dialogue is clunky, the plots are ridicule, the characters are one-dimensional and Paris looks way too clean. The only way this show could possibly redeem itself would be if Emily suddenly discovered her inner polyglot halfway through the series and became so fluent in French that the last five episodes had to be completely subtitled. And if she put on a stone from all those croissants. Alas, we’re doomed to watch her flaunting her bony collarbones as she offers up ‘hilarious’ half-assed innuendos to impervious waiters. Ah mon Dieu, achèvez-moi, tout de suite.
Do I have anything good to say about this cream puff of a ‘comedy’ ‘drama’? Non. Did I gorb the whole series in four days? Mais oui.
- Emily in Paris, 10 episodes, Netflix
