This is one of the wonders of Paris, I imagine, or at least of being rich in Paris: Even your misery plays like a fairy tale. In Avenue Montaigne, miserable souls are as common as raindrops, and each one is a portrait of privileged existentialism.

A film that seeks to amble it way towards resolution and which offers a few insights and smiles along the way.

The movie is as airy as a spun-sugar dessert, but Thompson's observations on the artistic life are both affectionate and knowing: Beauty and wealth, though inevitably compelling, are appreciated as means to humane ends, not goals in themselves.

Thompson's simplistic argument about wealth and poverty doesn't exactly inspire strong emotions, despite some well-crafted filmmaking and an urban prettiness reminiscent of Woody Allen's honey-dripping Manhattan locales.