(Various directors - see below)

Like life, a portmanteau film is a bit like a box of chocolates - if you don't like one you're almost bound to find another that takes your fancy soon enough. Unfortunately one's expectations of a first class chocolatier's offerings in this set of 18 films, made by different eminent directors in Paris, are very much confounded here, and it's more like a bag of misshapes.

Well over half of the films have strong American input, actors or directors or both, and the sad fact seems to be that such is the affection Americans have for the city that they think merely setting a film there rubs off enough glamour and romance to make it sufficiently entrancing. Most of these films either trade on French cliches or merely utilise the place as a backdrop for a story that could happen anywhere. Many stories are weak. Well, ok, short films, like short stories or poems, don't need to have ‘stories' as such, can just reflect a mood, look deeply into a tiny episode or state of mind, pose a question that perplexes - but many of these offerings fail to take you anywhere.

Actors are sadly wasted - Not even Juliette Binoche can lift the torpid Place des Victoires tale of a grieving mother ‘letting go' of her dead son. Bob Hoskins and Fanny Ardant make a weird couple in an old codgers' love story (Pigalle) that is obviously trying to be clever and sexy and lovable and fails all three counts. Although it's always a treat to see Steve Buscemi's face, he's reduced to mugging horribly in the Coen Brothers' effort (and it does feel like an effort) Tuileries, set in the Metro, which is nothing but a tired cliche of ‘oh those volatile young Parisian lovers, scary or what?'. And as for Wes Craven's turkey of a love story (Pere Lachaise), with a dullard Rufus Sewell coming over all witty and warm and saving his forthcoming marriage to the annoying Emily Mortimer when he bumps his head on Oscar Wilde's tomb... words fail me. Maggie Gyllenhaal is a tiresome American actress in Quartier des Enfants Rouges. Even Gus Van Sant (Le Marais) seems to have his foot on the soft pedal, his inconsequential tale leaving a sour whiff of ‘so what' in the air as it passes.

It's not all bad. At least Place des Fetes, Quais de Seine and Loin du 16e Arrondissement introduce characters of a different ethnicity and give a taste of the cosmopolitan nature of today's Paris, the last being a particularly beautiful, economical portrait of a migrant's life travelling across the city each day to look after a rich woman's baby while having to leave her own behind. Catalina Sandino Moleno is wonderful as ever, but this typecasting of her as saintly suffering migrant is getting ridiculous. Among the weaker ones, Tour Eiffel, a piece about mimes, debunks itself and is gently comic like a children's story. The almost surreal tale of a hairdressers' products saleman's first day at work (Porte de Choisi) is at least odd and different, and you can't help enjoying the sparky exchanges between Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara as an about-to-divorce couple in co-director Gerard Depardieu's Quartier Latin.

The ones I most enjoyed: a deft, bitter sweet, beautifully acted Truffautesque little piece on marital love by Isabel Coixet (Bastille); Thomas Tykwer's Faubourg St Denis, an intriguing, breathless tale of unlikely young love, and 14e Arrondissement, Alexander Payne's final portrait of the kind of American tourist (Margo Martindale) we're all familiar with, unfashionable, eager, naive and likeable. This is the tale of her lone visit to the city retold in the voice-over of her account written for her French class back home. It shows a genuine capacity for happiness and a falling in love with the city which sadly seems to have gone missing from its more facile companions.

But the regrettable fact is that, without their eminent stars, none of whom are exactly stretched, and who were doubtless delighted to be given the chance of a few days filming in Paris, if entered anonymously into any good short film festival, very few of these films would even get shortlisted. Shame.

MONTMARTRE - Bruno Podalyes   QUAIS DE SEINE - Gurunder Chadha   LE MARAIS - Gus Van Sant   TUILERIES - Joel & Ethan Coen   LOIN DU 16e ARONDISSEMENT - Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas   PORTE DE CHOISY - Christopher Doyle   BASTILLE - Isabel Coixet   PLACE DES VICTOIRES - Nobuhiro Suwa   TOUR EIFFEL - Sylvan Chomet    PARC MONCEAU - Alfonso Cuaron   QUARTIER DES ENFANTS ROUGES - Olivier Assayas   PLACE DES FETES - Oliver Schmitz   PIGALLE - Richard LaGravenese   QUARTIER DE LA MADELEINE - Vincento Natali   PERE-LACHAISE - Wes Craven  FAUBOURG SAINT-DENIS - Thomas Tykwer   QUARTIER LATIN - Frederic Auburtin, Gerard Depardieu   14e ARRONDISSEMENT - Alexander Payne