Adieu Paris

Patrizia (Jessica Schwarz) is an author whose career is finally taking off. As she shares her joy on the phone with her French lover Jean-Jacques, he crashes his car. Devastated, she flies from Düsseldorf to Paris, to find his icy wife Francoise (Sandrine Bonnaire) at his side as he lies in a coma. Shuttling back and forth between her love in Paris and her work in Düsseldorf, she bumps repeatedly into a fellow traveler, an investment banker named Frank, whose life is on a similar roller coaster trajectory. On the brink of cementing a huge deal between a Swiss bank and an eccentric French sausage king, he finds he’s been duped, and his career is over. While Francoise pressures Patrizia to help decide whether to end Jean-Jacques’ life, Frank’s marriage is falling apart. Each travels to Paris once more, where their paths cross anew. ADIEU PARIS reminds us there’s a time to leave the past behind and live life to its fullest. (In German and French with subtitles) —B.B.