NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU: I like you but not in that way

There are eight million stories in the Naked City, and NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU tries to cram at least half of them into it's 1 hour 45 minute running time.

This compilation of vignettes, eavesdropping on life in the Big Apple, aims to do for NYC what 2006's "Paris, Je T'aime" did for the French capital. That film presented twenty short self-contained stories revolving around characters falling in and out of love. Each had it's own cast of famous actors, directed by a different famous film director. 
The stories were charming, amusing and light, and Paris looked absolutely ravishing.
In the hands of a different, slightly less famous, collection of actors and directors that magic has somehow been lost during the journey across the Atlantic. They've created an image of New York that's soft and inviting but doesn't succeed in exuding genuine allure. In their efforts to capture the "real" New York the directors have studiously avoided the most famous landmarks leaving me with the feeling of having consumed a Sunday lunch which is all vegetables and no meat. I wanted more from the experience.
Some of the stories are incredibly short (giving the impression that I'd missed something) while some others are incredibly confusing (again giving me the impression I'd missed something). One vignette, featuring Julie Christie, Shia LaBeouf and John Hurt is particularly baffling, and the effort involved in trying to figure out what it meant distracted me from the subsequent installment.  

Chris Cooper and Ethan Hawke star in two of the more rewarding stories, but for pure, put-a-big-smile-on-your-face pleasure it's hard to beat veteran actors Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman as an elderly, bickering Jewish couple shuffling to the boardwalk on Brighton Beach for a breath of fresh air.
Ultimately the film is too busy for it's own good. There's too much going on to keep track of it all. 
In addition to the confusion described above, some characters have a habit of popping up out of context, Are they in this other story too, or are we cutting back to their story which is still going on even though it apparently finished? Perhaps the intention is to replicate the rhythms of the city but it feels messy and, at times, a little disjointed.
The heart's undoubtedly in the right place but as a love letter to one of the most incredible, exciting, and wonderful cities on Earth NEW YORK I LOVE YOU is an airport novel by Jeffrey Archer compared to the Shakespearean poetry of Woody Allen's "Manhattan."