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INTRO
Hold the front page! Lily Collins, the exuberant poster girl American in Paris, Emily Cooper, star of the eponymous Netflix hit Emily in Paris, the story of a brash but adorable heroine of the 2020s and SATC's little sister, has left Paris!
She's done what? Yes, she has left Paris for a Roman Holiday in the eternal city and a new man, the goat herding, polo playing, fashion scion, Marcello Muratori, Eugenio Franceschini, who could be the Italian James Bond or the new Marcello Mastroianni.
Of course it had to happen and Darren Star has got it just right.
Seeing Rome the Way Audrey Hepburn Saw it, Seventy Years Ago
The press haven't failed to notice that Collins bears a striking resemblance to Hepburn with the same elfin features. This is her iconic Roman Holiday moment, complete with the hypnotic neck tie, as she sees Rome through Audrey Hepburn's eyes as she saw it from the back of a moped looking at the Coliseum seventy years ago and later when asked by the press pack in the film which city she most enjoyed visiting on her European tour, she declared "Rome. By all means Rome," and she meant it. Rome represented life, love and freedom.
Let's get one thing straight. Emily goes to Rome is not a pastiche of the film Roman Holiday. It's more of a Roman Holiday love story inspired by the joy of the film without the heartbreak. It's also a marvellous eulogy to fifties fashion and to the power of a fifties skirt and magnetic necktie and that one scene where both Emily and Princess Anne see Rome from the vantage point of a Vespa.That's it. Thank goodness.
Emily Cooper is no captive princess in an ivory tower longing for freedom and a different kind of life. She's a career woman and marketing whiz who needs to jump off the merry go round and slow down, and find a new, uncomplicated love after her split from Gabriel.
What connects Emily and Princess Anne is Rome itself and the effect it has on the human spirit.
The scenes where Emily and her new love Marcello fly around the city on the back of a moped are a breezy, breath of fresh air delight and pay homage to the celebrated 1953 Oscar-winning film Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck - directed by the peerless William Wyler - whilst offering a 21st Century story which is more of an ode to the spirit of the film and the slow movement from slow love to reclaiming the idea of authentic luxury.
The Greatest Rom Com Ever Made - A Runaway Princess and a Wicked Newspaperman
In the film that is often called the greatest rom com every made, a runaway princess and a cynical American newspaper correspondent collide for 24 hours in Rome. Together they experience La Dolce Vita. Audrey's Princess cuts off her long hair, eats gelato on the Spanish Steppes, dances, speeds on a moped, gets arrested and experiences everything the city has to offer. And then she falls in love with Joe and that kiss at the end of the film is one of the greatest kisses in any film.
While the stories are very different, and Collins doesn't spend the night with a total stranger, get arrested for overturning market stalls or dangerous driving, the bond that unites Emily and Princess Anne is love and the longing to live fully, openly and intensely in the spirit of La Dolce Vita, the pulsating heart of Rome as a magical city steeped in history, life, vitality and beautiful ruins.
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The Sacrifice of Duty and Constraint Instead of Love and La Dolce Vita
If you haven't seen Audrey's Oscar-winning performance as a princess who chooses duty over love, after one hell of a night in Rome, you have to see it. Hepburn is incandescent. I also love that that the film is about a collision between royalty and the newspaper world. That's my world, and Gregory Peck is a damn fine, been around the block reporter in pursuit of the greatest scoop of his career and the film captures it all.
Well Luminary reader, I didn't see that all roads lead to Rome in Emily in Paris. But something had to give. We were all loosing the will to carry on watching the unhealthy will they or won't they relationship between Emily and Gabriel, with Camille, her scheming mother and baby brother and her phantom pregnancy to drive the lovers apart. It's like night and day. One night they are making out on a Paris roof top by candlelight, and the next it is all over and they are barely on speaking terms.
Lily Collins has been compared to Audrey Hepburn. The question was how would the writers get our heroine to Rome, surprise and delight the fans and not come up with a weak pastiche of one of the greatest films of the Golden Age.
A Village, a Family and a Celebration of Slow Artisan Fashion
I like the way the Italian angle is introduced to the story.
After Gabriel abandons Emily on the ski slopes of Megeve to chase after a pregnant Camille, Emily is out of her depth and falls over in the snow. The next moment she has the perfect meet cute with Marcello Muratori, Eugenio Franceschini, a handsome and charming Italian, and before you can say Limoncello, she meets him again on the polo field when it turns out that Marcello is a good friend of Nico's since their student days at the LSE in London. After a romantic all nighter with Marcello, walking around the streets of Paris, which ends at Sacre Coeur, our man of mystery invites Emily to Rome.
A Celebration of Fifties Style Fashion in Emily in Paris
And there we have it. The story is set for a Roman Holiday. Lily Collins has the same elfin features and the same air of wide-eyed insouciance that made Hepburn an icon and hugely beloved actress and humanitarian.
The adventure in Rome is also a brilliant opportunity to re-examine Hepburn's Oscar-winning wardrobe for the 1953 film. Lily Collins Roman Holiday wardrobe is far more opulent and a riot of retro ruffles, ruching, wasp waists and gorgeously retro, feminine silhouettes which mirrors the focus on romance, happiness, self discovery and a new spirit of openness and optimism.
I have no doubt, that Emily's Roman adventure is destined to create a new fifties craze from off-the shoulder blouses to form fitting fifties day dresses and the high waisted skirt which mirrors Hepburn's iconic, wasp waisted skirt and white blouse.
The show's costume designer, Marilyn Fitoussi, has done a wonderful job of taking inspiration from Audrey Hepburn's wardrobe and the fifties without in anyway trying to copy it. The result is a new, softer fifties look which is sublimely ladylike, playful and feminine.
Thus, the second half of Emily in Paris 4 is a triumph of style, escapism, pizza and community.
But let's not write off everything else that happens in the first half of Emily in Paris 4, even if it suddenly feels superfluous!
There are a few jewels in the first few episodes of series 4 to examine and some analysis, before we start swooning again over the Trevi fountain, the Coliseum and those close up, sensuous Eat, Pray, Love shots of Emily eating pasta, pizza and prosciutto with Marcello at her side.
Season three ended on the cliffhanger that Gabriel was in love with Emily, but about to marry Camille who was pregnant with his baby but now secretly in love with a woman, Sophia. As a result, Camille bolts from her own wedding.
Emily and Gabriel's Relationship Combusts
Alas, this storyline falls spectacularly flat at the beginning of Season 4, with Gabriel's will they, won't they indecision about Emily, and Camille's phantom pregnancy and disappearance. Fortunately there are still some very strong stories that swirl around Agence Grateau. Notably, the masquerade ball, where Emily looks like the caped crusader and she and Gabriel finally get some alone time together, alas, by pretending to be different people. The silliness is redeemed by the gorgeous cat-fight scene at Monet's lake in Giverny. Emily and Camille fight in rather restrained fashion over the mercurial chef, and they both fall into the exquisite lake, as if falling into an impressionist Monet painting.
A Chance to Find Out More About Sylvie's Back Story
Sylvie's character is developed more in season 4. I like the storyline where Sylvie finally does the right thing and exposes the billionaire CEO of JVMA, as a sexual predator, who has been using his position to pray on the young women who work for the company for decades. Though I think the story could have been developed even more. It's good to have storylines like that, because sadly, I know as a journalist this happens all the time.
I was once offered a trip on Concorde in my early twenties, by the editor of the magazine I worked for, in return for a night of sex in a 5 star London hotel. I told him that I would take a trip on Concorde when I could either pay for it myself or be offered such a trip based on my talent as a journalist, not for selling my body. On another occasion, after interviewing a moderately famous photographer, he asked me if I would like the position of his second mistress. It's remarkable how money and influence emboldens ugly, short, obnoxious men into thinking they can buy anything.
In Praise of Fearless Women - Emily, Mindy, Sylvie and Camille
One thing I love about Emily in Paris, is how strong the female leads are. Emily and Mindy always support each other over work and men and Ashley Park as Mindy is fearlessly good when she is standing up to Nico over his father's toxic behaviour or when she is prepared to go topless (almost) to raise money for Eurovision rather than asking Nico for a handout from his billionaire father.
Mindy's character is confident, sassy, beautiful and fearless and she has some stellar musical numbers in series 4 including her singing the seventies hit Don't Go Breaking My Heart. The song was a huge hit for Elton John and Kiki Dee in the seventies and Park's joyful version introduces the song to a new generation.
While her star turn at The Crazy Horse is a coquettish tour de force of sultry, songbird vocals and perfect comic timing, straight out of Cabaret, aided and abetted by Emily as her wing girl. Ashley Park excels both as a singer, actress and comedian and I would like to see her in her own leading role as she follows in the stellar footsteps of Julie Andrews, Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand and Lady Gaga.
Nightmare in Megeve and a Knight in Shining Ski- Wear
In true rom com style, Mindy has a fight with Nico, when he asks her to give up Eurovision and then Emily and Gabriel combust when Emily's holiday trip home to Chicago is cancelled due to bad weather. Not wanting to spend Christmas alone, she accepts a booby-trapped invitation to spend Christmas in Megeve with some brilliant comic moments as Camille becomes jealous and her mother and little brother scheme to mess up Emily and Gabriel.
Enter Marcello, when Gabriel chases after a pregnant Camille on the ski slopes and leaves Emily who can't ski, stranded on top of a mountain.
For once, Emily is very decisive. She ends her tempestuous relationship with Gabriel and returns to Paris. When she meets Marcello again at a polo match the temperature rises and he asks if he can see her before he returns to Rome.
After staying up all night, wallowing in slow romance, Emily stuns and impresses Sylvie by asking for a single day off as a vacation day. That's Americans for you. Sylvie generously tells her to take the rest of the week off.
If all this all sounds very un-Emily and secretive, as Em tells Sylvie and her office colleagues that she is going to Krakov for the weekend, blame it on her BF, Mindy, Ashley Park. Park brilliantly embodies the daring, showgirl spirit of the great Hollywood actresses who sing and act and were brain boxes in school too. I am thinking of Judy Holliday, Hedy Lamarr and Jayne Mansfield.
Mindy is more of risk taker than Emily in her life, career and in love. Mindy tells her friend to buy a plane ticket and have an Italian adventure. She also tells her Rome is for sex!
Marcello certainly unleashes a new side to Emily. Suddenly, she isn't driven by work or the next pitch either. The second half of Emily in Paris 4 is focused on slow romance, pasta and courtship and as a slow magazine we declare ' magnifico - we love it.
Now back to Emily and Marcello and Princess Anne and Joe Bradley.
Roman Holiday was pretty daring back in the fifties. There is no jumping into bed, but plenty of sweet sexual tension and jokes by Hepburn about how it is most unusual it is for her to take her own clothes off before bed! Audrey does land up hogging Gregory Peck's bed, whilst completely out of it on sleeping medication. That was pretty shocking for the fifties. Imagine a Princess Drugging Scandal Now? Nor does it show a good side to her royal minders dealing with royal misery by getting a doctor to knock her out with drugs! That would make the front page.
And in a way, the story of Emily and Marcello echoes fifties moral codes. The writing focuses on romance rather than sex. They spend their first night walking around Paris, talking and getting to know each other, and then they do it again in Rome, when Marcello puts Emily in a cab in the early hours, and declares he will take her to his beloved village in the morning. It's clear that the writers want to evoke the spirit of Hepburn and Peck and leave a lot to the imagination.
I can't help feeling that the overarching theme in season 4 is between the hard nosed glitz and glamour of Paris and the warmhearted openness of Rome and Italians.
The tone of the Italian odyssey is different to Paris too. The focus is on slow love and and courtship, as Emily and Marcello take time to get to know each other. Our girl checks into the Hotel Eden solo and Marcello gallantly sends her back there in a taxi, after she says she doesn't want their first day in Rome to ever end.
Marcello, is more open, loving and attentive towards Emily than Gabriel and he talks passionately about his village and his family. Then, there is the voice that could slay dragons, even French ones.
How can Gabriel compete?
The Charm and Power of Slow Romance and Courtship
We know Marcello is chivalrous because he saved Emily on a French mountain top and he appears to be very smitten with our girl. Well, that's what he told his mother. The focus on romance and courtship is charming. It's good for the feverish female imagination. Remember what Jane Austen said in Pride and Prejudice. “A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
But where will it end? Is Marcello too good to be true? Is he holding something back? Will Marcello and Gabriel fight a duel over our heroine?
Roll on Emily in Paris 5, it is going to be hot.
For now, at least, we are tired of Paris, Of the cold-blooded, sang froid rudeness, (even if highly exaggerated), Emily's loose the will to live, on off relationship with chef Gabriel, the work, work ethic and poor Alfie put out to pasture. Non! It won't do. We all need a Roman Holiday. All roads lead to Rome.
But please don't let Emily suffer the same heart break as Audrey Hepburn's character Princess Anne, who sacrifices her intense love for Joe for a life of public service, constraint, a gilded cage and hot milk and crackers before bed.
Verdict - The writing in Emily in Paris is no match for Hollywood's great screen writers. The film won the best Oscar for the story. Where it excels is in the sharp social comedy, and character development of key people around Emily, especially, Sylvie, who arrives in hot pursuit of Umberto Muratori as a new client, trashes Emily's romance in a heartbeat in pursuit of revenge (LVMA) and kudos and then she picks up where she left off with the hot film director to spite Laurent. Phew.
Emily in Paris - Roman Holiday doesn't seek to examine the uncomfortable relationship between the fourth estate and royalty or anything too deep. Ultimately, it's the beauty of Rome and Lily Collins's likeness to Hepburn and the fifties fashion references from the film that do the talking and make it work for film and fashion lovers.
I do like the storyline of Umberto Muratori, a small, artisanal slow fashion house that shuns social media and marketing. Instead the focus is on making Italian cashmere garments to last of rare and exquisite quality while taking care of an entire village where the company began. Emily is right when she suggests they share their way of life in order to tell the authentic story of the fashion house. Now which real life small fashion house could be the inspiration?
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Alison Jane Reid/The Luminaries Magazine Copyright September 2024 All Rights Reserved. Images from Roman Holiday and Emily in Paris are Copyright and For Editorial Use Only. No Reproduction Without Permission and No Copying using Ai or Any Format Whatsoever.
