Over the course of around 20 years, youthful French D.J. Paul (vacant newcomer Félix de Givry) navigates the electronic-music scene, flirting with stardom while also contending with cocaine abuse and ever-expanding debt. Lasting well over two hours, Eden is an epic and unfocused-by-design journey through the nocturnal Paris from which Daft Punk sprang; the film is inspired by the house-music career of the brother of director and co-writer Mia Hansen-Løve. Hers is a picture deeply in touch with its subject. Almost every face, sound, and texture rings true, and the best moments are defined by a certain hard-to-counterfeit anecdotal authenticity. Unfortunately, it is still a rather dull experience. Protagonist Paul is fashioned as a detached cipher—he is first and foremost a lens and guide for the audience—and this becomes a problem when the film tries to tug heartstrings with lost-love sentimentality. The characters in general, particularly Paul's various record-spinning male friends, are thinly developed and easy to confuse with one another during the extended nightclub sequences. (Hansen-Løve's assumption of audience investment may be an unfortunate byproduct of how personal the project is.) And the aforementioned length is engorged and indulgent; the film reaches and ignores several natural conclusions and too often eschews momentum and structure to linger...and linger...and linger on the tangential, to the point atmosphere starts to congeal into malaise.

C+