One night in Toronto with Paris Hilton was probably one night most could have done without. At least that was the overriding sentiment for those who scored tickets to the sole screening of director Adria Petty's Paris, Not France, a documentary about the self appointed icon, in competition at this year's Toronto Film Festival. According to Page Six last week, Paris had forced the festival to cancel all but one screening to create more buzz, something that was deemed a clever move. It was certainly crafty, but a more likely reason would have been to limit the bad buzz that would have spread like wildfire had more people been allowed to see it. (This is an old game in Hollywood—when a studio senses it has box office bomb on its hands, it limits screenings in advance of release.)
The film is silly—a pointless exercise and a wasted opportunity for both filmmaker and subject, who one presumes set out to give some context and relevance to the tabloid star. But it reveals nothing, except what we already know: that Paris gets in and out of a lot of cars usually while talking on the cell phone. Visually, the film even looks as if it was shot on a cell phone
On a more positive note, Paris, Not France has a running time of one hour and eight minutes, though for this magazine editor, that was about 68 minutes too long.
Photos by Jeff Vespa/Wireimage (left); George Pimentel/WireImage
