"Forget Paris"
                             A film review by
                           Linda Lopez McAlister
                           on "The Women's Show"
                         WMNF-FM (88.5), Tampa, FL
                               May 28, 1995

    Some Friday nights you just want to see a light, romantic comedy. That's
the way I felt last night. The trick is picking the right one of the several
that are playing at the moment. Should it be, "While You Were Sleeping,"
"French Kiss," "Forget Paris"?--that was the decision. When it came right down
to it the principle of decision is based on who's in it and who directed it.
As a longtime admirer of Deborah Winger (particularly of both her acting and
her smile) and Billy Crystal, "Forget Paris" came out on top. This was Billy
Crystal's debut as a director and he had a hand in writing the screenplay as
well. Who knows if it was the best choice of the three, but it was a good
choice, providing just the right kind of intelligent and good-humored
entertainment for a holiday weekend.

   What I liked about it: Billy Crystal as director, like a kid having fun
with a new toy--occasionally playing with the camera, at other times playing
with the audience by setting you up for visual and narrative surprises (I
can't tell you what they are or they won't be surprises) but the film starts
out with one that has the whole theater laughing about 30 seconds into the
film. I also liked the screenplay. Of course it's the old boy meets girl, boy
loses girl, boy gets girl back, boy loses girl...in many iterations. But the
way it's done is kind of interesting and it's not clear from the word go that
the whole thing is going to end on a boy gets girl back note (or if it does,
if it's going to remain that way). The Billy Crystal character is Mickey
Gordon, a diminutive (what else) referee in the NBA who calls 'em like he sees
'em and doesn't hesitate even to cancel what would have been Charles
Barkeley's winning shot in the NBA playoffs when he alone in the auditorium
thinks the shot came a nanosecond after the buzzer had sounded.(There are lots
of cameos of NBA stars playing themselves in this film, so basketball fans
ought to like it). Mickey's best friend, a sportswriter played by Joe
Montagna, is about to get married and as he and his fiance sit in a New York
bar and grill waiting for Mickey (who's working a game at Madison Square
Garden) and other friends to arrive, he tells her the strange story of how
Mickey and Ellen met in Paris. As others show up, each takes a turn telling
another part of Mickey and Ellen's story --  and how badly their marriage
turned out despite that romantic beginning.  Although most of the people
telling the story are Mickey's male pals, their wives get in a few anecdotes,
too, more sympathetic to Ellen, so that she's not made out to be the villain
of the piece. Without going into the details of the plot, I liked the idea
that, in its good-natured way, the screenplay is sensitive to issues
surrounding two career families, infertility, the assumption that daughters
will bear the responsibility for caring for aging parents, etc.

   This plot structure makes the film quite episodic and a bit choppy, which
may not be to your taste, though I found that that added interest to it as the
different narrators' points of view made for subtle shifts in the way the
characters of Mickey and Ellen are depicted.

   What I didn't like about the film: Its subtly racist assumption that,
though he works with Black players, sportscasters and referees, it's only the
white sportswriters and refs that Mickey socializes with in his home or at
this wedding party. It would have been easy enough to include the Black
referee in the scenes where his white referee pal is included, conveying the
subtle message that Mickey has interracial friendships as well as working
relationships. Instead we see that his close friends are only white. Too bad
they passed up that opportunity to depict interracial friendship.

   Still, a very enjoyable entertainment film and a nice directorial debut for
the multi-talented Billy Crystal.

 For the WMNF Women's Show this has been Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and
Film.