A NY Thing

Antoine, an irritating, French thirty-something, is head-over-heels for gorgeous Alice. When this belle fille decides to go back to her boyfriend in New York, Antoine goes after her. He only has several days to convince her to get back together with him. In the Big Apple, he meets Alice’s friends and her partner. Unaware of their Parisian fling, they allow Antoine, who introduces himself as John, to stay with them. John-Antoine, a mischievous liar and romantic lover, makes increasingly desperate attempts to get Alice back.

A NY Thing, a sometimes funny and sometimes aggravating romantic comedy, is part of a long tradition of New York love stories. Olivier Lécot’s film is close in feel to J.C. Mitchell's Shortbus, though the former is more emotional than physical. There are no plot twists: New York is the main character, with its mythical atmosphere of a city where anything can happen. The scenes showing New York and its bohemians make the film a charmer. The camera follows John-Antoine, showing daily life in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, where he repeatedly finds freaks – unfulfilled artists, partying intellectuals, or nutty doormen. A panorama of New York emerges from this sequence, of a city thoroughly familiar to everyone through film and television, but completely fascinating nonetheless.

Samuel Nowak