Film Review: Paris Memories examines life after a terrorist attack

Paris Memories.

Paris Memories

★★★★☆

Cinema release

Inspired by the devastating terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015, which left 130 dead and hundreds injured, Paris Memories (15a) follows one woman’s attempt to rebuild her life in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

Written and directed by Alice Winocour, whose brother survived the 2015 attacks, the film focuses on Mia (Virginie Efira), who meets her partner, Vincent (Grégoire Colin), for dinner. 

He is called back to work, leaving Mia to go home alone, but she stops off at a bistro for a glass of wine, where her life is irrevocably changed when terrorists open fire.

Many are killed, Mia is shot and left for dead. 

Three months later, Vincent tries to make life as normal as possible for Mia, who has returned to Paris after recovering in her parents’ home. 

Paris Memories.

She has few memories of the attack, but fragments return. She wants to remember it all.

Mia returns to the scene of the attack, where a support group meets. 

Here survivors help each other remember, and relatives of the dead come hoping survivors can tell them about their loved one’s last moments.

She connects with Thomas (Benoît Magimel), a fellow survivor and teenager (Nastya Golubeva) whose parents died in the attack, but can things ever return to normal after such a trauma?

Paris Memories.

A study in grief and the continuing effects of trauma on memory, ‘Paris Memories’ is a thought-provoking drama with stand-out turns by Efira and Magimel.

Thomas uses humour to deflect the horror of memories, and Magimel carries the humour with ease. Solid stuff.