A weekend in Paris: Lindsay Duncan and Jim Broadbent attempt to revive their marriage.

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As they approach 60, this couple’s youngest child has left the nest and their relationship could use some jump-starting. And so university lecturer Nick Burrows (Jim Broadbent) reserves a room for himself and his wife Meg (Lindsay Duncan) in the same Paris hotel where they had their honeymoon 30 years before. What’s meant to be a relaxing trip to the City of Light turns into a chaotic stock-taking of their marriage. To make things worse, the two run into Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), a college friend of Nick’s, who has since turned into a world-class academic.

Paris, the city of love, offers a backdrop for an aging marriage: what sounds like clichés and cheap sentimentality is actually an honest, often odd drama about a relationship in search of lost love – thanks to a piercing screenplay and thoughtful production. This is the fourth collaboration between director Roger Michell and screenwriter/author Hanif Kureishi. The result is an amusing and absorbing mini-break in Paris, about a marriage in desperate need of revival.