Strong on atmosphere but less interesting in content, this is a skilful and elaborate evocation of Paris in the Twenties, or, more accurately, of its artists' quarter at that time. Although skilfully structured, the results still run more like a TV mini-series than a film. One admires director Alan Rudolph's beginning, with real-life 1926 footage of Paris, speeded up to indicate people hurrying and scurrying about and getting nowhere. But, of the performances thereafter, only Keith Carradine's central portrait of an American cartoonist rises above the ordinary. Evocation can only go so far in itself, and these artistic butterflies and barnacles grow tiresome before the film is half-way through.

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