The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
This relaxed sense of naturalism also extends to the film’s numerous sex scenes, which can be sensuous but also funny or awkward, depending on the circumstances.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
France · 2021
1h 46m
Director Jacques Audiard
Starring Noémie Merlant, Makita Samba, Lucie Zhang, Jehnny Beth
Genre Drama, Romance
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A series of vignettes follow three friends living in Paris who fall in and out of love with each other in this beautifully filmed, black-and-white story of youth, love, and relationships in the modern age inspired by the work of American cartoonist and graphic novelist Adrian Tomine.
The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
This relaxed sense of naturalism also extends to the film’s numerous sex scenes, which can be sensuous but also funny or awkward, depending on the circumstances.
Full of fresh faces and unique stories, Paris, 13th District makes a case for genuine connections in a culture bent on transposing them into commodified products.
As mercifully non-didactic as one would expect from any French movie about a constellation of hot people banging into each other as they rotate along their respective orbits Paris, 13th District is much less interested in judging these characters than it is in watching to see how they keep their balance.
The episodic nature means that, despite the frequent physical comings together on screen, it never quite comes together as a drama.
Screen Daily by Jonathan Romney
Paris is more than just a setting here, but absolutely defines the way that the characters live and connect, the rhythms and pressures of their existence.
Paris, 13th District wades in the strange, true interconnectedness of life and evokes the banality within, so much that it starts to become banal itself.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
I’m not sure that Les Olympiades says anything too profound about any of its cast of characters, but Audiard achieves something very watchable and entertaining in anthologising them. This is a connoisseur date movie.
A silky, soulful black-and-white tapestry of single millennials seeking connection.
It’s not judgy or lecturing, and there’s nothing too didactic here – and maybe not a lot to linger over either. But if you’re looking for a couple of hours of sexy Parisians hooking up, falling out and finding their feet again, all set to pulsing electro and with a baked-in romanticism that makes a built-up corner of Paris feel like Casablanca, Audiard and his co-writers have made the perfect film.
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
This foursome’s lives intersect in consistently thrilling and surprising ways, thanks in no small part to the fundamental volatility of contemporary young urban lives.
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