Chinese Puzzle (Casse-tete chinos).

This Woody Allen style romantic comedy about Parisians in New York forms the final part of a trilogy written and directed by Cedric Klapisch. The first was 2002’s The Spanish Apartment, the second The Russian Doll in 2005 and now we have the concluding part. Chinese Puzzle (2013) features the same main characters and actors, Xavier (Romain Duris, more Heartbreaker (2010) than 2005’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped), Martine (Audrey Tautou), Wendy (Kelly Reilly) and Isabelle (Cecile de France).

 

Moving New York style.

Not quite the luxury apartment!

Xavier, a forty something novelist, is now divorced from his wife Wendy and see’s his two children on pre-arranged visits. But when his ex announces that she intends moving the family from Paris to New York City he decides to move to be near his children. Moving into the flat of his old friend Isabelle and her girlfriend Ju he agrees to help the couple have a child. Two’s company and three’s a crowd so Ju helps him find him a flat in China Town where the rents are cheaper than Brooklyn or Manhattan. He gets a job as a bike messenger, participates in a marriage of convenience to allow him to work legally in America and settles to his new life, that is until his ex-lover and her two children arrive in New York.

 

The family gets bigger.

The women in Xavier life.  

Not having seen the first two movies did not spoil my enjoyment of this French comedy.  A clever and polished lightweight fantasy, with a heavyweight cast list, that’s both funny and entertaining.