Jefferson in Paris

1995

Action / Biography / Drama / History / Romance

8
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 33% · 15 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 36% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 5.7/10 10 3312 3.3K

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Plot summary

His wife having recently died, Thomas Jefferson accepts the post of United States ambassador to pre-revolutionary France, though he finds it difficult to adjust to life in a country where the aristocracy subjugates an increasingly restless peasantry. In Paris, he becomes smitten with cultured artist Maria Cosway, but, when his daughter visits from Virginia accompanied by her attractive slave, Sally Hemings, Jefferson's attentions are diverted.

Director

Top cast

James Earl Jones as Madison Hemings
Éric Génovèse as Liberal Aristocrat
Lee Delong as (uncredited)
Gwyneth Paltrow as Patsy Jefferson
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
1.25 GB
1280*688
English 2.0
PG-13
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
2 hr 19 min
Seeds 2
2.32 GB
1904*1024
English 2.0
PG-13
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
2 hr 19 min
Seeds 6

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by BelmontRose1 8 / 10

Most American movie goers would not appreciate this

Most American movie goers would not appreciate this movie - rather looking for another plane /car /train crash with guns blazing in as many scenes as possible and with at least one expletive every five minutes instead of a film with meaningful dialogue. Jefferson in Paris was a terrific film. It exposed and examined Jefferson's split personality - creating the Declaration of Independence, insisting he wanted slavery abolished, but keeping a female slave and starting her sexual abuse at age 16. He also kept his eldest daughter tied to him for his entire life, living in his home although she married and had many children. This film was made in 2004, but has as much relevance today as it did then. The first stirrings of the French Revolution were touched on and how the powerful rich believed nothing could touch them. That was proved an illusion when the poor, starving masses began the "Terror," killing every aristocrat they could find. The inequities between the rich and the poor is as great today as it was then and when people have nothing to lose, revolution ensues.
Reviewed by R T 9 / 10

I'm very surprised at the low rating of

I'm very surprised at the low rating of this film, which I found fascinating if only for the view we get of French high society just before and at the start of the French Revolution. I loved the glimpses we got of French Opera, the Montgolfier brothers' balloon, Franz Mesmer's experiments, the Royal Court, and a Convent school. All of these are recreated in lavish detail. A considerable amount of the dialogue, especially during the first half of the film, is in French. I can only assume that for many viewers all this detracts from the central drama of the rivalry between three women for Thomas Jefferson's (Nick Nolte's) affections: his troubled and possessive daughter Patsy (Gwyneth Paltrow) whose love for the church threatens to supplant her affection for her father; Maria Cosway (Greta Scacchi), an Anglo-Italian artist and musician whose marriage to painter husband Richard (Simon Callow) is one of convenience and not of passion; and Sally Hemings (Thandie Newton), a young slave who is a much loved nursemaid to Jefferson's younger daughter Polly but also half-sister to his late wife and very much on the cusp of womanhood. Added to this is another family drama, the tension between Sally and her brother James, who has been brought to Paris to learn the secrets of French Cuisine, but who also comes under the influence of revolutionary ideas and yearns for his freedom. These intimate dramas are all very civilised and restrained, somewhat in contrast to the increasing lawlessness around the protagonists as the revolution gathers pace, but as a stiff upper lipped Brit I enjoyed all the suppressed emotion and coded conversations, and didn't find the film overlong despite its considerable length. But what we see also poses questions about who the liberty and equality promised by the American revolution and the coming French one is for. With so many ingredients, this is certainly more of a sprawling royal banquet of a film than a perfectly arranged nouvelle cuisine dish, but in an age where "The Crown"'s recreation of the British Royal family's doings has been such a success I think it perhaps should be better received now than when it was first released. Perhaps not quite such an elegant delight as some of their other films, but still a very worthy opus in the Merchant Ivory catalogue, and I think very much underrated by both critics and audience.
Reviewed by R T 10 / 10

I saw it in the cinema and thought

I saw it in the cinema and thought my oh my it's a superb film, the colours alone make it an exceptional movie. Then I saw the low score here!
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