Jefferson in Paris

Jefferson in Paris takes one of the brightest, most scintillating intellects of his generation and turns him into a crashing bore.

The film begins in 1784, with Jefferson arriving in Paris to relieve Benjamin Franklin of his duties as ambassador to the court of Louis XVI.  The film doesn’t show us the turnover – I imagine it would have been impossible to make Franklin, the greatest intellect of the previous generation, dull enough to fit into this picture.  So here we are: a charismatic genius dropped into the ferment of pre-revolutionary France, trying to carry on Franklin’s mission of getting Louis to spend less time talking about helping the Americans and more time actually helping them.  He and Franklin were wildly successful, of course: all that French military and economic assistance eventually bankrupted the state and directly contributed to the fall of the monarchy.  This is fascinating stuff, but does the film show us any of it?  No.  What does the film show us?  Jefferson’s love affairs.

Big deal.  If Merchant Ivory Productions had wanted to do a picture about love and sex in fin de siècle France, it should’ve gone with the Franklin years.  They were more interesting.  Jefferson had an (apparently chaste) affair with a well known English artist and may have begun his lifelong relationship with Sally Hemings in Paris, but Franklin - well, this is a family blog.  Look it up for yourself.

Nick Nolte, as Jefferson, does the character no favors.  He comes across as a passionless man even when (supposedly) in the throes of great passion.  It’s as if screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala crafted his voice from the formalized writing style of the time, coming up with something that feels more like a historical reenactment than a dramatic film.

So here we are, with a dull Jefferson in a melodramatic film that turns a fascinating man and time into 139 minutes of tedium.  Give it a pass.