The Thousands

Film makers often feel better equipped to capture the soul of a city through episodic vignettes: Los Angeles in Short Cuts; Paris in Coeurs; Naples in Gomorrah. Producer Emmanuel Benbihy has turned the format into a franchise: New York, I Love You is the second of his “Cities Of Love”. It follows Paris, Je T’Aime; next up, Rio.

Ten directors each had two days to shoot, eight to edit, and eight minutes of screen time for their Big Apple love stories. I found many segments smug and overly talkative. But while cutely grumbling pensioner couples are as New York-y as bagels, Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman lend a wonderful chemistry to Joshua Marston’s segment. In Shekhar Kapur’s elegiac vignette, a dolorous bellhop (an actually interesting Shia LaBeouf) assists a suicidal diva (Julie Christie). And in Brett Ratner’s very funny tale, Olivia Thirlby gives Anton Yelchin a prom night to remember.

The most pretentious storyline is the one meant to cement everything together. An awful video artist (Emilie Ohana) endlessly films people because, y’know, we’re all, like, human, and shit. I think we’re meant to take that warm, fuzzy notion out of the cinema. You might. I didn’t.