Paris by Night (1988) User Reviews

Unless you need a sleeping pill, stay away from this one.

[dwhodgson · 5/10 · 16 September 2003]

What a boring movie. Charlotte Rampling plays a British politician with a troubled family life. She stays in Paris and complicates her life with an affair and a murder. The movie is constantly shot in the dark making it difficult to tell whether the setting is Paris or London. I gave it 5 out of 10 and only because I am a big fan of Michael Gambon.

Highly recommended for its exquisite leading lady.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 26 August 2023]

The ravishing Charlotte Rampling is fascinating in this British political mystery as a member of parliament who travels to Paris, ends up in an affair with the sexy younger Iain Glenn and finds herself involved in a situation that could ruin her reputation as a Tory conservative. It's fascinating to see her character come alive as she releases the suppressed warmth inside her and has to face the possibility of losing her son with older husband Michael Gambon.

Complex and intense, this is one of those character based films that has lots of small details boiling together to create a fascinating view of a commanding woman with lots of conflicts, powerful when making a campaign speech, but secretly falling apart under the pressure of blackmail. This leads to a murder mystery twist where the viewer keeps seeing the presence of a body in the river.

The smirking leering smile of Robert Hardy is an unforgettable visual with his smug presence climbing over Rampling like a leaky roof, threatening to cave in at any moment. The little details collect like leaves in a drain from that roof and as everything unfolds, it has some shocking revelations. I didn't see that big twist coming which really makes an impact on my rating overall.

True psychological thriller

[ricohp69 · 8/10 · 21 February 2013]

An under-appreciated multiple themed experiment on love, ethics, feminism, murder and the growing EU, showcasing a luminous Charlotte Rampling in a complicated and compelling story. Michael Gambon plays the ailing MP husband in a fractured marriage - a deep moral fissure which splinters the entire film. Central character Clara Paige rises to European parliament power holding onto a decaying sense of self in a European Union working to bring together disparate elements such as boorish English aristocrats and rioting French farmers. Against this backdrop comes a passionate affair; a twist of fate; the unexpected act of murder; its hidden and soon not so hidden consequences, and the jumbled choices each character makes leading them toward the film's devastating climax.

Like the characters' sketched two faced drawing on a café napkin, to their late night phone calls and visits, this film is about our darkest corners and how we navigate them - in family; politics; and ultimately, in love. Paris by Night is David Hare's dark gem.

Guilty Pleasures

[emailbillphillips · 8/10 · 9 October 2017]

Couldn't take my eyes off this movie, AND Charlotte Rampling who gets sexier the older she gets. (Is she a jogger? Just watch the scenes where she runs.) Plot keeps tugging at you from beginning to end. There really are no "good guys" here, moral ambiguity galore. But, if you want a 1980's "film noir" that gets darker twist by twist, here's a great way to waste a couple of hours.

A cinematic gem in every way

[robert-temple-1 · 10/10 · 21 April 2017]

This magnificent British film from the late eighties seems to have been largely forgotten, though I cannot understand why. I would say that it ranks with Jack Clayton's THE PUMPKIN EATER (1964, see my review) and Jules Dassin's 10:30 PM SUMMER (1966, see my review) as one of the finest psychological cinematic dramas of the second half of the 20th century. It was written and directed by David Hare, who in my opinion has never received sufficient recognition for his unique talent, despite his numerous successes on stage and screen and the fact that Brenda banged his shoulders with a sword. Every aspect of this film shows genius. The lead performance by Charlotte Rampling as a Conservative M.E.P. of the European Parliament may possibly be the best performance of her entire career, despite all her triumphs over the years before and since. Michael Gambon, who plays Rampling's sad and disintegrating husband, was not yet recognised at this time as the towering figure he is now seen to be. But his resonant voice and impeccable performance here are clear signs of his work to come, especially the lustre he would later add to numerous Stephen Poliakoff productions. The story is extremely harrowing. Rampling plays a cold and ambitious Conservative woman politician, who neglects her child and is alienated from her husband, who is a Westminster MP. I have heard gossip to the effect that David Hare was not unfamiliar with such a woman, but whether or not that be true, he certainly has drawn a fine portrait of her, although an extremely chilling one. She is asked to take part in an important political and diplomatic meeting in Paris, so off she goes on that mission, from her family home in London. (We never see her in a European Parliament environment, and this film is so old that the European Union was then still called 'the Common Market'.) Hare gives excruciatingly accurate and unflattering portraits of the 'Foreign Office types', often called 'mandarins', of two countries, who generally manipulate all foreign affairs and toy haughtily with the fates of nations (or plot how to destroy them by merging them all in a continental marshmallow controlled by themselves, where voters count for nothing). Robert Hardy plays one particularly loathsome specimen, who keeps leering at Rampling and making anonymous phone calls of a suggestive nature to her, in which he says: 'I know who you are.' He has evidently got a whiff of some suppressed scandal in her background, and as the story progresses, we find that is all too true. Andrew Ray does a superb job of playing Michael Swanton, a former business partner of Rampling and her husband, whom they financially cheated in the past, and who has evidence of their early fraud. He has been blackmailing Rampling and turns up again in a state of absolute desperation. Much later in the film we learn that his reason for being so desperate is that he is penniless and needs the money for the education of his daughter, rather than out of greed, and that he is a pathetic figure rather than a sinister one. In fact, it becomes clearer as the action progresses that the sinister ones are Rampling and Gambon, who in the public eye appear to be paragons of public service and integrity. The moody cinematography for this film by Roger Pratt is truly superb, and greatly adds to the effect. He has taken the title literally, as so much of it is indeed by night, but a very imaginatively shot night which entirely lacks the usual cheap tricks of less creative nocturnal film lighting. I wonder if he is related to the Anthony Pratt who did the Production Design, which is also excellent. Even though the film has two Pratts, it has no pratfalls, but is even, controlled, and fluid throughout. The result is a powerful, sad, desperate drama, where some characters' fates are deserved and others are not. Not unlike Life, really.

Brilliant, unexpected and stylish.

[douglasbrook-1 · 9/10 · 1 October 2013]

Brilliant movie. Fantastic cinematic atmosphere and photography. Love the way the camera moves with the emotions of the story - changing angles in unexpected ways. Great Film Noir feel. Charloette Rampling is intense and powerful. She is such a fascinating character - do you like her or hate her? Love the dialogue. Ian Glen, Michael Gambon are superb too. The scene where she is running through the streets and her world of power and control is crumbling is good - the sound of her heels on the pavement. Also like the scene where she gives her big political speech - and then the wife of the guy she murdered says it was a good thing he died and it seems like everything has worked out for her after all. It hilights the way people can be so selfish - even to get away with murder if they can. I found the plot really clever how it all meshed together even the mistaken identity of the midnight caller. David Hare is brilliant. Love this, Plenty, Wetherby and The Reader in particular.

Arguably one of the best movies dated 1988

[jgcorrea · 8/10 · 12 March 2020]

1. Distant Voices, Still Lives 2. Who Framed Roger Rabbit 3. The Return of Sherlock Holmes: The Bruce Partington Plans 4. Abolição (mini-series) 5. Dangerous Liaisons 6. Tucker: The Man and His Dream 7. Married to the Mob 8. Não amarás (Krótki film o milosci) 9. Não matarás (Krótki film o zabijaniu) 10. Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser 11. O Primo Basílio 12. Strange Interlude [in American Playhouse: 13. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels 14. A Handful of Dust 15. Mississippi Burning 16. Komissar 17. The Unbearable Lightness of Being 18. A Summer Story 19. Cop 20. Paris by Night.