Dans Paris review

It’s two days before Christmas and a depressed Paul (Romain Duris) retreats to his father’s flat in Paris, having split with his girlfriend. There his divorced Dad (Guy Marchand) fusses over him while his cheerful younger brother Jonathan (Louis Garrel) tries, unsuccessfully, to coax him out of his room to join him on a tryst-filled dash across town. Hanging over proceedings, however, is the memory of their sister’s suicide...

The follow-up to writer/director Christophe Honoré’s Ma Mere, Dans Paris is partly an enjoyable homage to the work of French New Wave maestros and partly an affecting family drama in its own right, interspersing its melancholic mood with bursts of euphoria. And it’s also a pleasure to watch its charismatic young leads – cast here against type – play the sparring yet tender fraternal relationship with a genuine note of bunk-bed bonhomie.