Trouble in Paradise

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, Trouble in Paradise follows upper-crust criminals Gaston (Herbert Marshall) and Lily (Miriam Hopkins) as they conspire to steal oodles of money from the wealthy owner (Kay Francis’ Mariette Colet) of a successful perfume company. It’s a promising setup that’s employed to predominantly (and distressingly) underwhelming effect by Lubitsch, as the filmmaker delivers a deliberately-paced and entirely momentum-free comedy that fares especially poorly in its uninvolving, arms-length opening stretch – with the meandering atmosphere preventing the viewer from embracing the exploits of the somewhat one-dimensional protagonists. (And it doesn’t help, certainly, that both Marshall and Hopkins turn in flat, far-from-charismatic work here.) And although the picture improves slightly once it becomes clear where everything’s going (ie there’s finally a point to all this), Trouble in Paradise‘s impact is dulled by a proliferation of jokes that simply fail to land and an ongoing emphasis on far-from-engrossing subplots – which, when coupled with an upbeat yet ineffective conclusion, cements the movie’s place as a disappointing misfire from a mostly rock-solid filmmaker.

** out of ****