Young Jessica (Cécile de France), fresh from the countryside where she cared for her dying grandmother, arrives in Paris and immediately gets a job at a traditionally male-staffed café on Avenue Montaigne. There, she becomes involved in the personal and professional lives of the performers working nearby, including an I-want-to-get-away-from here- classical pianist named Jean-François (Albert Dupontel) a TV soap actress named Catherine (Valérie Lemercier) and other famous people stationed on the Avenue as well. Avenue Montaigne gets lost in its on foam and portrays a callous aesthetic with B-list actors from France trying to prove they're worth a damn. While it is an enjoyable premise that starts out great, the foam from that cappuccino overtakes your appetite and spoils it deeply. The film is as frothy as they come, a 1 hr. 45 min. trip into the heat of the avenue and the annoyances of the characters, finally culminating in a "script- writer- gone-bad" ending which has that loathsome smell of Hollywood.
Review of Orchestra Seats
