I Love Paris

OVERVIEW

Becoming a vampire may sound like a terrible inconvenience, but for someone desperate to become famous, it could actually be a huge opportunity. In I Love Paris, Paris (Aminata Thiboult) is an aspiring French musician determined to become famous, despite her lack of popularity and, well, questionable talent. To document her “inevitable” rise to stardom, she hires a cameraman to follow her around Paris, recording her efforts to attract attention. During one of these attempts, she unexpectedly encounters Lutèce (Leonor Oberson), a lonely vampire who ends up accidentally transforming Paris into a vampire herself. Paris must now figure out how to survive as a vampire while continuing her pursuit of fame.

BACKGROUND

I Love Paris is the second feature from Australian filmmaker Nicky Murphy, following his little-seen comedy Leatherdaddy (2019). Murphy was actually working on another film, which fell apart just as his partner became pregnant. He wanted to make one more film before becoming a father, so he decided to build a story around his sister-in-law, Aminata Thiboult, a musician living in Paris, using the opportunity to make a vampire movie, something he had always wanted to do. Because of the circumstances, filming began before the screenplay was finished, and Murphy and his cast developed much of the story as they went along, improvising much of the dialogue. The film premiered at Fantasia 2026, where it won the Gold Audience Award for Best International Feature, before screening at Toronto After Dark.

THE REVIEW

The film gets off to a terrific start. Thiboult, first seen introducing her Buddha figure with an erection, which apparently represents her love for music (she has a boner for it!), is immediately charismatic as Paris, a self-absorbed young woman whose overconfidence and peculiar personality make her an unconventional yet magnetic protagonist. Her first encounter with Lutèce is followed by one of the year’s strangest, creepiest, and most hilarious stalking sequences, establishing both the film’s tone and the wonderful dynamic between the two actresses. These opening 20 minutes are the film’s strongest and give the rest a lot of leeway, even as it starts to lose steam throughout the middle section.

The premise is simple enough: Lutèce, who prefers to live alone in her tunnel, is forced to teach Paris how to kill, while Paris must claim 107 victims before she can free herself from her new mentor. This also leaves Lutèce reluctantly acting as Paris’s agent. Watching these two contrasting personalities bicker is a blast, with things becoming even more complicated when Mimi, an influencer who wants to become a vampire herself, enters the picture. From that point on, the film’s improvisational approach begins to show its limitations, as it meanders through extended sequences that do little to advance the plot or develop its themes. Here and there, a new character appears, or a scene suddenly brings energy back to the film, such as those involving Rémi Giordan as Remi, someone from Paris’s past. But you can feel the film going in circles, repeating similar jokes and dynamics that worked well enough the first time around. The film is much better whenever it returns to Paris and Lutèce, and suffers whenever their relationship is sidelined.

Underneath that relationship, the film seems to comment on TikTok culture and the need to become someone else to achieve fame, or how talentless people will get famous with the ‘right’ novel idea. Even if the pieces are there, this arc feels confusing and often unclear about what it is trying to say.

It’s shot as a mockumentary, which is both one of the film’s strengths and a bit of a distraction. At its best, the guerrilla-style filmmaking has flashes of the spontaneity of the masterpiece This Is Spinal Tap, while keeping the vampire elements fresh. Yet the way the cameraman reacts (or mostly doesn’t) to some of the most extraordinary things happening directly in front of him makes it all feel far too artificial. Unfortunately, you’re reminded that it is a film, and worse, a gimmick, quite a few times.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There is an extraordinary 80-minute film inside this nearly two-hour runtime, one that could easily become a cult classic. The chemistry between the two main characters is a hoot, and whenever the film focuses on them or their bickering, it is full of personality and life. Not everything else works, and the film feels its length. A much tighter structure could have made this really special.

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