{"id":199052,"date":"2025-12-18T22:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T22:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/199052\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T22:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T22:02:09","slug":"it-may-be-ridiculous-but-you-have-to-give-it-a-grudging-respect-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/199052\/","title":{"rendered":"It may be ridiculous but you have to give it a grudging respect \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ll always have Emily in Paris \u2013 only now it\u2019s Emily in Rome<\/a>. Or is it? While Lily Collins\u2019<\/a> fashion-on-the-brain lifestyle publicist is now in the Eternal City (Rome, not Cork<\/a>), the blockbusting dramedy continues going out under its old name \u2013 and half the action is still taking place in France.<\/p>\n

With most shows, this ambiguity would be highly confusing \u2013 but Emily in Wherever has always been a bonbon in a souffl\u00e9 atop a chocolate fountain anyway, so none of this actually matters. It\u2019s all about what\u2019s in front of you on the screen at any given moment. So, for instance, when Emily takes \u201ca bus\u201d \u2013 presented as an exotic concept seemingly unfamiliar to American viewers \u2013 and her scarf flies out the window, it feels like we\u2019re watching the essence of the series. It\u2019s experiential, it\u2019s ephemeral, it\u2019s as fleeting as a dash of perfume on your wrists.<\/p>\n

Why is Emily in Rome? Her boss, Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), wants to establish an Italian beachhead \u2013 and luckily, Emily\u2019s new boyfriend (Eugenio Franceschini) is the son of a knitwear magnate and potentially lucrative new client. Back in Paris, meanwhile, Agence Grateau\u2019s plans to launch a range of fragrances for babies have gone all whiffy. Never mind \u2013 Emily and her friends are now flogging the same scent to her boyfriend\u2019s sweater company \u2013 while passing it off as specifically designed for their brand.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0If Emily in Paris had a HR department, the \u2018HR\u2019 would definitely stand for \u2018happy riding\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t that unethical? Ah, but that would be to fall into the trap of taking Emily in Paris seriously when the series itself never does. It also doesn\u2019t tell you anything about the real Rome. There are lots of shots of the Trevi Fountain and St Peter\u2019s looming over the skyline, but you\u2019re not going to find Emily on the Curva Nord at Lazio. We do, however, see her trading banter with Minnie Driver<\/a>, playing a British expact who has married a minor Italian aristocrat yet who is royally skint (\u201cI\u2019m palazzo poor\u201d) and who steals every scene she is in.<\/p>\n

Since its debut in 2020, Emily in Paris has been variously celebrated as a guilty pleasure and lamented as a sure sign of civilisation\u2019s downfall. This is obviously untrue, given that the clearest evidence that humanity is doomed is the ubiquity of Killeagh by Kingfishr<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In any event, the show\u2019s creator Darren Starr is unapologetic \u2013 as well he might be. In an increasingly grim and war-torn world, Emily in Paris is as inconsequential as anything and as ridiculous as a beret worn in a downpour. But it has the courage of its conviction \u2013 it is never less than effervescently silly \u2013 and for that you have to give it a grudging respect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ll always have Emily in Paris \u2013 only now it\u2019s Emily in Rome. Or is it? While Lily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,16386,98031,1868,1838],"class_list":{"0":"post-199052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-lily-collins","12":"tag-minnie-driver","13":"tag-netflix","14":"tag-paris"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}