


As obvious as its title and as sexy as an all-gals bull-riding contest, “The Wrong Paris” is a Netflix romance novel of a movie whose creators don’t dishonor The Hallmark Channel Oath.
Keep it cute, keep it clean and make it watchable.
It’s a bon bon, a Hallmawkish wish fulfillment fantasy that riffs on the “reality” of reality TV. And it makes a fine star vehicle for “School of Rock” alumna Miranda Cosgrove, years removed from her child star days (“iCarly”) but still a pixie, still making media about making media.
She stars here as a plucky Texas metal sculptress who is accepted at a Paris art school, but who has to go on “Bachelor” style reality TV dating show (“The Honey Pot?”) to “earn” the cash for tuition, living expenses, berets and baguettes and what not.
Dawn’s younger sisters (Emilijia Baranac and Ava Bianchi) tip her off about the Dallas auditions. The show is promising to take contestants to Paris this season! You don’t have to win, place or “show.” All you have to do is get picked for the cast of 20 young women, collect that consolation check and you’ll already be in France!
At the video interview/audition, it’s obvious that show runner Rachel (Yvonne Orji of “Insecure”) is rooting for the plucky waitress with dreams of an art “career.” That gets in her over the bored objections of ratings-panicked producer Carl (Torrance Coombs).
Next thing Dawn knows, she’s on a plane with a brand-ambassador/influencer, an Orlando princess looking for her prince, a baby-mama in waiting, scientist, Tomgirl and assorted other “types,” sipping champagne and cooing “Ooo la la” on a chartered jet for Paris.
Kids these days. They don’t know their classic cinema. The German filmmaker Wim Wenders made a famous America film about “Paris, Texas.” Hell, Dawn grew up just down the road from it. She didn’t smell this switcheroo thanks to the Dallas auditions?
Dawn’s Montmartre dream becomes her nightmare of getting “stuck where I grew up.”
She’s furious, and who wouldn’t be? A LOT of Texas is like Paris, Texas — flat, dry and dull, aside from the local “characters.” I mean, the Wenders film was made ironically, after all.
Dawn meeting the rich ranch heir Trey McAllen III (Pierson Fode of “Swiped”) they’re “competing” for and seeing it’s the same handsome hunk that hit on her at the honky tonk the other night doesn’t lessen her fury. But she’s got a contract. She can’t get paid until she’s not selected for a “silver spur” as Trey thins the cast.
There’s nothing for it but to do the axe throwing, the haystack maze, the bull-riding and what not, trying to get the oft-shirtless Trey’s attention.


Orji, a fiesty Madison Pettis as the mean-girl “brand ambassador” with a huge social media following and a couple of other contestants make impressions.
There are chuckles but no hearty laughs in the assorted girlfight shenanigans and forced cornpone in Nicole Henrich’s low-hanging-fruit rom-com script.
“I like to two-step with a woman before I waltz with her.”
And Cosgrove and Fode kind of click in that pre-ordained rom-com way. She’s good at plucky and he’s been hitting the gym…a lot.
It’s all harmless enough even if it’s about as Paris, Texas as it is Paris, France. Yeah, they filmed it in Vancouver.
Rating: TV-14
Cast: Miranda Cosgrove, Pierson Fode, Yvonne Orji, Madison Pettis, Christin Park, Madeleine Arthur, Naika Toussaint, Veronica Long and Frances Fisher.
Credits: Directed by Janeen Damian, scripted by Nicole Henrich. A Netflix release.
Running time: 1:45

