I resisted the hype of ‘Emily in Paris’ for a long time. I knew it would be a simple rom-com sort of an experience so I had kept it reserved for a rainy day when I only wanted entertainment over anything else from OTT content. And that day came, and Emily in Paris has joined my experience list. I happily decree that it has delivered everything I had expected from it, even the problematic aspects, and I’m fully happy with it.
Emily moves from America to Paris with a hyper-romantic prejudice in her mind about the city. The city caters to her prejudice in the first season and how. Paris is that picture perfect fantasy land where people hate to work, love to love, ace the art of dressing up, where food tastes phenomenal and the air is simply that of sophisticated ease. Pretty much everyone has an illegitimate affair and no one reprimands that because apparently the sense of marital righteousness is not significant in a city that is so romantic. And then the people are so notoriously good looking; its ridiculous. I don’t assume I’ll ever get over how hot Gabriel is.
Of course, Emily in Paris dwells unabashedly on clichés and we get to see only one part of the city in its romantic and aesthetic majesty. The show does not attempt a take on realism whatsoever, but that’s a directorial choice I can get on board with; given the intention of the show. The series isn’t trying to do anything serious, it’s quite clearly a light-hearted entertainer from the get-go. And so the obsessive dwelling on the romantic side of the city and the characters is acceptable. They do make some references to racism and inclusivity in parts of the script so the political correctness is there; without it feeling forced. But the highlight of the show remains the aesthetics and the grace with which it flows.
Season 2 onwards
Well, disappointingly, Gabriel became less and less hot and more and more toxic in the next seasons but everything else was pretty great. The utopian Parisian dream of saying no to work on weekends and holidays started to really impress me, considering the stark contrast that we all live in. All the characters got a character arc and the newly added characters also blended well into Emily’s life. Her newer love interests Alfie and Marcello do top Gabriel but for some reason, I feel like I’m hung up on the romance of the first season and cannot really replace him for Emily. It will be interesting to see if she will finally end up with one of them in Season 5 or if the writers will keep the on-again-off-again plotline running for some more time.
Its rather unrealistic how Emily just blends into the sophisticated world of Paris and is now moving to Rome. She has been written to be incredibly talented at marketing so its not necessarily a shock that she marketed herself well into the lives of her Parisian counterparts, but it is still impressive. Anyone else would take way more time to overcome the culture shock and the rather ruthless demeanors of French people towards outsiders. I hope the series does not end up giving youngsters the wrong idea about life in Paris.
Oh, we all can agree that Geneviève can go back to America. For the first time, there is a character introduced to the series with a sinister undertone (even Madeline wasn’t sinister, just bossy and crazy) and we don’t like it; it simply doesn’t sit well with the tone of the show. We like seeing challenges like marketing mishaps and client relations and triangle romances – not a sad excuse for a competition attempting to ‘be’ Emily by swaddling her love interest.
Anyways, Emily in Paris was a fast paced and indulging experience and I am certainly looking forward to the next season. I like that Netflix spends a good sum on producing simple yet sophisticated entertainers like this one that we can resort to for a comfort-binge any day.
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