New York, I Love You

The cinematic version of a book of connected short stories, New York, I Love You works because it doesn’t work too hard. The city plays it cool, without fanfare. Its endless intersections and storied locations become natural settings for a mediation on the spontaneity and simultaneity of love across the big urban reality. Most of the directorial segments (Mira Nair, Shekhar Kapur, Allen Hughes) are dreamlike vignettes. They allow the actors to deliver physical, gestural performances (watch Shia LaBeouf, Drea De Matteo and Irrfan Khan), as though observed by the passerby, the distracted onlooker. Tokyo, Paris, Toronto, Los Angeles have all gotten this treatment. The key is not telling too much on screen. (See, or don’t, Toronto Stories.)