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More of an experiment than a fully fleged feature film, Paris Je T'Aime gathers more than a dozen directors from all over the world and offers them the world's most romantic city as a backdrop. The result is, inevitably, a mixed bag: eighteen filmettes lasting around eight minutes each, veering in tone from light and fluffy to bitterly tragic. If there is a recurring theme, it's the power of love, or perhaps the endless possibilities of the city.

It's hard to review Paris Je Taime as a whole, because it never really comes together. It's like scoffing a whole bag of Revels in one go, orange fondant, coffee and all. So, let's pick out some highlights: the Coen Brothers have come up with a wry essay on American paranoia, told from the perspective of a tourist (Steve Buscemi) stuck in a lonely Metro station.

Wes Craven's stagey segment is set in a graveyard, but abandons his horror roots for romantic comedy, and chucks in the ghost of Oscar Wilde to offer relationship advice. Juliette Binoche is as luminous as ever as a grieving mother in Nobuhiro Suwa's brief, enigmatic fairytale section, and Tom Twyker draws an unusually sensitive performance from Natalie Portman, as an actress falling in love with a blind man.

"OFFERS A FEW WHIMSICAL SMILES"

Other contributors are less successful. Alexander Payne's tale of a Denver housewife finding peace in Paris is horribly patronising, and Gurinder Chadha offers an equally shallow lesson in race relations. Taken as a whole, Paris Je T'Aime slips down easily enough and offers a few whimsical smiles, but you may find yourself craving more substantial nourishment before the end.

Paris Je T'Aime is out in UK cinemas on 29th June 2007