College lecturer Nick and schoolteacher Meg (Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan) take the TGV to Paris for their 30th wedding anniversary. He still dotes on her, but she's had the seven-year-itch for at least 23 years. She insists on moving to a more ritzy hotel and makes it plain she'd like to move on to a more ritzy husband. They run into an old college chum of Nick's (Jeff Goldblum) who's got a new young wife. A party at his apartment confirms Meg in her feeling that life has short- changed her.
This sour take on the middle-aged romcom is scripted by Hanif Kureishi in the style of Woody Allen. It has no more substance than a 30-minute TV sitcom - a cross between AS TIME GOES BY and ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE - which is stretched a bit thin at 93 minutes. The best scene involves a restaurant bill they can't afford, but the joke falls flat when it's repeated in the hotel. Jeff Goldblum phones in another variant on his usual rich rogue persona. Jim Broadbent's Nick is a solid if predictable take on Victor Meldrew. Lindsay Duncan's Meg is the best thing in the movie, a partially tamed shrew who thinks - wrongly - that she could have, should have, done better. Married couples - maybe even unmarried couples - may find this film leaves a bitter taste; I think it's meant to.
