If You Must be Lost, be "Lost in Paris"

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If Lost, Be “Lost in Paris”

By Skip Sheffield

If you must be lost somewhere, there is no better place than “Lost in Paris.”

This is a charming goofball comedy-romance by Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon.

Fiona plays a character also named Fiona, who is a prim Canadian librarian who receives a letter from her elderly Aunt Martha (Emmanuelle Riva) indicating she is in some kind of distress in Paris.
Canada is pictured comically as a blizzard-bound white wasteland. Fiona takes the first available flight to Paris, strapped to a ridiculously huge red backpack, topped with a Canadian maple leaf flag.

Things go amiss right away. First Fiona can’t locate her Aunt Martha. Then she falls off a bridge into the River Seine, losing her backpack. Then she meets a homeless man named Dom (Dominique Abel), who tries to help her, but he only irritates her and won’t leave her alone.

The movie takes best advantage of the City of Paris; one of the most beautiful cities in the world. If you have been there it’s a plus. I was there only once as a lad of 21, looking more like 15. However I was pretty fluent in French, which was an enormous advantage. The character of Fiona has only a rudimentary knowledge of French. Poor Fiona klutzes her way through Paris, with Dom and a certain stray dog attached to her. Fiona Gordon is an actress we can call “fearless.” She wears large unflattering glasses and a frumpy dress, which due to her loss of her backpack; she wears through most of the film.

Dom Abel is one of those adorable tramp types, like Charlie Chaplin. Real homeless people are rarely this charming, but hey it’s a fantasy, and it is set in Paris. It has a limited run at Living Room Theaters in Boca and the Lake Worth Playhouse.