Plus, despite the panto rudeness of her coworkers, Emily has a better first visit to Paris than anyone who actually exists. It’s all tiny coffees and sumptuous bouillabaisses in golden breweries on sunny days. Everyone in the real world, literally without exception, spends their first visit to Paris paying a fortune for a stringy steak under the smeared plastic awning of an unheated cafe, then having a terrible argument in an oil market. fleas.

But I agree with this kind of rigging. Who wants reality, to scream out loud? Look around you! It’s reality ! You want Following this side ?

The big sister of the show, Sex and the city, put a similar shine on the visuals. The sun was still shining on the attractive galleries and restaurants of a sparkling clean New York City, and the figures were always in fashion. This made it an attractive world to join.

Emily / Lily Collins lacks the charm and complexity of Carrie Bradshaw / Sarah Jessica Parker. She has less of the performer’s X factor and is a lot more downright pretty – so, inevitably, less relatable. A generation of women fell in love with SJP because her beauty was as much the result of hard work as it was luck. God gave him a strong nose, frizzy hair, creative vision, and discipline. We knew in our hearts that we could be as beautiful as this dazzling creature, if only we could be disturbed.

So we got into Carrie’s look, her messy romantic life, and the witty, troubled and complex questions she asked as she sprawled out in front of her keyboard in fabulous underwear. (And just in case we didn’t get along, we’ve been treated to three best friends – a range of women, so to speak – where Lily Collins is asked to wear the show completely on her own.)

But the 21st century take on gender relations in Emily in Paris is not at all complex. Emily talks so much about sexism, creepy trial and error, and the more vulgar male gaze that the viewer sees no trace of her own physical desires. It becomes impossible to root for her to get away with anyone because men appear as all somehow disgusting. The moment Emily turns on her vibrator (surely a deliberate echo of the infamous ‘bunny scene’ from Sex and the City in 1998), it feels horrible to watch, as if the program itself is just one. another eyeing chauvinist.

Carrie Bradshaw and her friends were also fiddled with, insulted and revolted as they made their way through town, but it clashed with their own lust and sexual power. For me, this confusing mix is ​​a more faithful reflection of the female experience. Ultimately, I suspect that making the main character a social media expert – a poster of one-line tweets and Insta hashtags, rather than a longtime columnist – is a massive simplification of the entire Sex experience. and the City.

Nevertheless, I will see Emily again in Paris. I quite like it! And I love him for all the things other people criticize. Everything is beautiful and silly, and the sun is shining.