Med bare seks minutter film til rådighet klarte Alexander Payne med sin kortfilm 14e Arrondissement å lage det mest rørende og tidløse bidraget til antologifilmen Paris je t’aime (2006).

“Paris Je T’Aime,” a mosaic of 18 miniatures, each set in a different location in the City of Light, is a cinematic tasting menu consisting entirely of amuse-bouches. […] In the lovely final story, “14ème Arrondissement,” directed by Alexander Payne, Margo Martindale plays a middle-aged postal worker from Denver alone in Paris on her dream vacation. Her voice-over, an epistolary interior monologue delivered in a French spoken with an amusingly flat American twang, describes a happy-sad epiphany.

– Stephen Holden i The New York Times.