A Couch in New York

I don't understand why this movie isn't more popular. William Hurt plays wonderfully sensitive and sincere. Juliette Binoche is charming and natural. The story is like a book. And the filmmakers and photographers have caught the moments just right. The lines and words are not pathetic: they are intelligent and honest.

I love this film. I have seen it several times and Cole Porters "Night and day" suits the film and actors really well.

I give this film top score for seeing the special art and beauty of living. Few movies catches the small deatils like this one: In colours, quite comfortable moments, moods, real life-pictures and honest life-image.

Thank you very much, filmmakers, actors, storytellers, composers and photographers for reminding us how beautiful life can be.

I think the first minutes and the end are great moments of comedy. Nevertheless if I were the director I would have explored more the situation of the characters, he in Paris, she in New York, with a lot of gags, to put them together only in the end. His sudden return to New York slows the funny rythm of the beginning in my opinion and puts us into a series of pseudo romantic very weak scenes like those sessions with Hurt on the couch and Binoche uttering monosyllabes all the time. And one "intelligent" question: how could she got the dog into the plane right in the hour in spite of all those very strict rules about animals travelling abroad?

I really tried hard to like it... but the film simply is boring. In spite of a charming Binoche and a promising story, Akerman fails to create any true atmosphere. She manages to create some funny scenes, but a couple of funny scenes do not make a comedy. Neither does the viewer care about Hurt and his psychoanalyst nor do we feel any warmth and human feelings in his beginning relationship with Binoche. No romantic sparks flying, at least I didn't see any. The dialogue is also not funny. This is the second film by Akerman I viewed, the other being The Captive, which also fails for the same reasons. Akerman may have delivered nuanced portraits of persons, especially women, in earlier films, but Un divan in New York lacks everything a comedy needs.

This mess needed a Lubitsch touch if it was ever going to succeed, and Akerman is no Lubitsch. Bad script, poor acting (although it is amusing to hear Hurt's French--what is behind this trend for American actors in French roles?; cf Malkovich in Temps Retrouve). When the best scene is a dog swimming in Central Park lake, you've got trouble.

A Couch in New York is a French/American/Belgium co-production with the innocence and humour of the romantic comedies of the 50's. Juliet Binoche shows the charm of a modern day Audrey Hepburn (with the same beautiful vulnerability portrayed by Hepburn in Funny Face and Breakfast at Tiffany's) while William Hurt plays the strong man role that used to be reserved for the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Fred Astaire or Gregory Peck. Using old tricks of mistaken identity and falling in love with a stranger, the dialogue is somehow saved from sounding corny and instead pays homage to the classic romantic comedies. A two tissue movie.