Produced, Directed, Co-Written by and Starring Billy Crystal, 'Forget Paris' shows the comedic legend at his most confident. This 1995 underrated Romantic-Comedy is an amusing blend of love & zany. And it helps when Debra Winger is the leading-lady.'Forget Paris' Synopsis: An NBA referee and an independent working woman, find their lives interrupted by love and marriage.'Forget Paris' is a charming tale on love, marriage & life, itself. The Screenplay by Crystal, Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel humorously narrates this tale of an unlikely couple & throws them into a world full of humor. I found myself laughing most times & never felt bored. I also liked how the story is narrated by the protagonist's friends over a dinner, giving the film that extra edge, containing surprise. However, the Writing in the last-hour is a bit off and drags. The final-act could've been better, for sure. But otherwise, there is less to complain here.Crystal's Direction is self-assured, as he's handled the film well. He keeps the goings-on light & uncomplicated. Cinematography is tops. Editing is mostly on-point. Art & Costume Design are satisfactory.Performance-Wise: Crystal is a comedic genius & there are no surprises on that. He shines here too, enacting the leading-man with just enough madness to pull him through. Debra Winger, who's unfortunately pretty absent in movies off late, is a delight. There is not a single false note in her portrayal. Both the actors also share a rather infectious on-screen chemistry. Of the supporting cast, Joe Mantegna is excellent as Crystal's best friend & The Late/Great William Hickey is funny as Debra's dad. On the whole, 'Forget Paris' deserves a watch for sure. Its A Lot Of Fun!

Mickey Gordon is a basketball referee who travels to France to bury his father. Ellen Andrews is living in Paris, and works for the airline he flies with. They meet and fall in love, but their relationship goes through many difficult patches. Their love life is told in flashback by their friends at a restaurant waiting for them to arrive....Written and directed by Crystal, you'd be forgiven if you'd think it was a vanity project, but he did that two years earlier, this is sort of a reheated version of 'when Harry Met sally' and whilst it never hits the heights of that movie, it's still a classy movie.it's so easy going and laid back, you forgive Crystal for the gags that showcase him, or the incidental music that just goes for your heartstrings at the correct points, or the fact that it gets a little bit too smug for it's own good when we are at the table with the support.it's because crystal knows how to grab the audience and keep them hooked until the end.I know it's no the best movie out there, but it's charming and the cast are brilliant in a 'we've known each other forever' kind of way.Funny stuff, Crystal is a brilliant writer

Is there a specific reason why Crystal has not directed more often? I'm feeling like starting a petition and sending a copy of this to anyone who would potentially sign it. He, Mantegna, Kavner(the three reasons I gave it the much-deserved chance), Winger and Stevenson are fantastic. Their performances and the timing, spot-on. This is incredibly funny, in the clever, dry, not trying too hard kind of way. The humor does have a few gross moments, however, apart from that, it's all hilarious, if you're into the sarcastic, at times cynical, type of material. Hardly any gags or jokes fall flat, throughout it. It's well-acted, and the characters are good. In addition, it's highly involving, and you find yourself caring, not just laughing, during this. Part of the emotion comes from the honesty of this, that it isn't your usual romantic comedy of "boy who looks like a male model meets female lead who appears to have stepped right off the train from Glamourville", and so on and so forth. This has ups *and* downs, and goes beyond the superficial level of the Hollywood pap that we all know, without forgetting what genre of film it is. The story is imaginative and holds surprises. The writing is top-notch. Do note that this is not for kids, the rating the MPAA gave it makes sense. There is language and themes herein. I recommend this to any fan of anyone who was part of creating it, Billy in particular. 7/10

"Forget Paris" is on some ways reminiscent of the work of Woody Allen. Billy Crystal is, like Allen, a diminutive New Yorker who started as a stand-up comic before moving into acting, and his character in this film, Mickey Gordon, has something in common with Woody's self-deprecating creations. The story of Mickey and his wife, Ellen, is told in a series of flashbacks by a group of acquaintances over a meal in a restaurant; Allen had used a similar technique in his "Broadway Danny Rose" and was to do so again in "Melinda and Melinda", although in that film the stories told were invented ones.Mickey meets Ellen when he flies to France to bury his father, who has expressed the wish to be buried with his old Army comrades who were killed during the war. On arrival in Paris, however, Mickey finds that his father's coffin has been lost. Ellen is the airline official responsible for helping him find it. That sounds like the opening for a zany, screwball-type comedy or a macabre black comedy, but "Forget Paris" is neither. It is rather a romantic comedy with a difference. Most rom-coms are about courtship, and end with the marriage or engagement of the couple concerned. This one is as much about what comes after marriage as with what leads up to it; the marriage of Mickey and Ellen comes less than halfway through.After the missing coffin is found, Mickey and Ellen have a whirlwind romance in Paris, leading to their marriage and to her leaving her job in Paris to return with him to America. Paris in American films is typically the city of love and romance; one of these, "An American in Paris", is referred to a number of times. Mickey even sings one of the songs from that film, "Our Love is Here to Stay". The title, "Forget Paris", a phrase used a number of times in the course of their marriage, therefore becomes shorthand for "We've got to put the courtship phase of our relationship behind us and move on to dealing with the problems of married life together".And Mickey and Ellen have plenty of problems. They are unable to have children, and their relationship is put under stress by their contrasting lifestyles. Ellen, cultured and sophisticated, would prefer to live in Paris, but reluctantly agrees to return to America. Mickey is a basketball referee, which means that he spends much of the time travelling around America, leaving Ellen at home. She tries to persuade him to quit his job so that they can spend more time together, and this leads to quarrels between them. Further strain is caused by the arrival of Ellen's irritating elderly father Arthur. Eventually they separate, and Ellen returns to Paris. The title therefore takes on added significance; can Ellen forget Paris, or will she end up forgetting Mickey? Some reviewers have taken exception to the happy ending, such as James Berardinelli, who accused it of lacking "emotional honesty". Of course, it would have been quite possible to turn the story of Mickey and Ellen into a serious study of a failing marriage, but "Forget Paris" was never intended to be a film of that sort. In my view, a happy ending is the only one possible; an unhappy ending to a romantic comedy would be about as appropriate as a series of strident dissonances at the end of a Mozart symphony. And "Forget Paris" is clearly designed to be comic, not tragic.The two leading actors are very different in their styles of acting. As I stated, Billy Crystal started as a stand-up comedian, and specialises in comedies. (I would find it difficult to imagine him in a serious film). He was, of course, the star of "When Harry Met Sally", one of the best romantic comedies of the eighties. Debra Winger, on the other hand, is not an actress I would normally have associated with comedy. In early films such as "Cannery Row" or "An Officer and a Gentleman" she played attractive, vivacious characters, but she later became a rather intense actress, at her best in serious dramas like "Betrayed", "Shadowlands", "Black Widow" or "A Dangerous Woman". I never cared for that lugubrious romantic tragedy "Terms of Endearment", but the fact that Winger won a "Best Actress" Oscar suggests that a lot of other people liked it.The point of casting two such dissimilar actors may have been to emphasise the contrast in character between Mickey and Ellen, a contrast that would have been lessened if Ellen had been played by an experienced romantic comedy actress such as Meg Ryan, Crystal's co-star in "When Harry Met Sally". Winger's performance here suggests that she is not perhaps the world's most naturally gifted comedienne, but she still makes an endearing, if rather earnest, heroine. The difficulties in the Gordons' marriage may stem from the fact that Ellen is a fundamentally more serious person than Mickey, except perhaps where basketball is concerned. (Even the name Mickey, with its associations with Mickey Mouse and "taking the mickey", suggests someone less serious than a Michael or even a Mike). Crystal is very funny in this film, and most of the best lines go to him, although there are also some good contributions from the assembled diners. ("Marriages don't work when one partner is happy and the other is miserable. Marriage is about both people being equally miserable"- that one could be straight out of Woody Allen). There are also some great set pieces, such as the scene in the fertility clinic and the one where Ellen gets a pigeon stuck to her head. Overall, this is an amusing and likable romantic comedy. 7/10