Café de flore

Vanessa Paradis-starring romantic drama/By Tom Dawson Heeding Jean-Luc Godard’s advice that a story should have a “beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order”, writer/director Jean-Marc Vallee’s drama juggles two seemingly disparate tales, linked by the seductive title song. In late ’60s Paris, young single mum Vanessa Paradis raises her son with Down’s syndrome alone, while in modern-day Montreal, middle-aged DJ Kevin Parent leaves his family for a younger woman. Beneath the surface panache lies an overlong, emotionally shallow study of so-called ‘twin flames’, possible reincarnation and learning to let go of love.