I Only Speak American

Three stories. One city. Spoken in American.

For a hundred years, Americans have come to Paris without speaking the language. I Only Speak American follows three of them into the city: one who came for the story she'd tell back home, one who came with something in his jacket, and one who came for good and keeps coming back.

THE 13TH ANNIVERSARY (Le Treizième Anniversaire)
Grant and Kelly White of Rye, New York, have been married thirteen years. She has planned Paris since the honeymoon he traded for a free house in Cabo; he would rather have a steakhouse and a Rangers game. Five days, the hotel she chose, one reservation for the big night, and a marriage the whole neighborhood admires. She wanted Paris for the telling of it. She's going to get a story.

72 HOURS IN PARIS (72 Heures à Paris)
A man leaves Marseille at dawn with cracked ribs, split knuckles, a thinning band of euros, a packet he was never supposed to keep, and a small black case several people would kill to open. He has three days in a city he has no interest in understanding, and he keeps moving. Nobody tells you what he does for a living. By the last hour, you'll have a theory.

THE STAND-IN (Le Remplaçant)
July 2018. Jim Dorrs, Rochester by way of New York, Paris his second home since his daughter was born, suddenly has a week to himself. Over one long night in the eleventh arrondissement, with drinks and cigarettes, he tells the story of 1999: the AOL romance his college roommate built on a stack of lies, and the day the roommate asked Jim to show up as somebody else. It's the funniest story he knows. It is not the last story of the night.

Funny, sexy, violent and unsentimental, I Only Speak American is an ode to Paris from someone who never once pretended to be French.