2 Days in Paris

From a study of the movie poster, you might be tempted to think this is another pointless romantic movie about two lovers in France. "Oui," they will fight, love, eat croissants and find meaning. How drearily cliché.

But, surprise of surprises, "Two Days in Paris" is a very funny, very soulful and very interesting look at a slice of the life of two quite interesting characters. On the surface, Marion (Julie Delpy) and Jack (Adam Goldberg) are two irritatingly pretentious neurotics. Both 35 and childless, they have been traveling Europe for 2 weeks, deciding to stop in Paris for a couple days to drop in on Marion's family and friends before flying home to New York. Marion is French, the child of left-wing French artists. Jack is a New Yorker, a political lefty whose shallow grasp of culture (he speaks only English, for instance) is purely American. She had aspirations to be a photographer, though (for reasons the film will make clear) her work is strictly third-class. He takes pictures of everything, but has no eye for form, color or composition.

What's fun about the film is the complexity of the relationships. To Jack's annoyance, Marion keeps bumping into her old boyfriends. And her father seems intent on humiliating or offending him and his American tastes. A dinner scene in which he is offered a rabbit's head is just hilarious. When offered carrots, he says, "So, we're going to eat the bunny's food, too?" For her part, Marion cannot understand why Jack finds her continued casual friendships with exes to be so extraordinary. And Jack, utterly clueless about the nuances (or even the surface content) of Marion's conversations, is getting paranoid that he is not being told everything. At one point, Marion is holding a violent argument with a racist cabdriver. Jack knows something is going on, but can't get past Marion's insistence that everything is fine.

I realize as I write this that I am doing no justice to the joyful sense of voyeurism that the film affords.The film is so smartly written and fast-paced that sometimes you forget you are watching a film and think you are watching dinner with Julie's real family or attending parties with her smug and artsy friends. The film is completely convincing and has a depth of heart I didn't expect. It deal with secrets and the frustration that comes from knowing another person. The language and culture barriers then act as metaphors for the inability of two people, even lovers, to inhabit another's life and experience.

"Two Days in Paris" is not for all. Marion and Jack are exemplars of the worst aspects of US and European artistic classes. Their treatment of a group of Americans on a "Da Vinci Code" tour tells you more than you want to know about the antagonisms between right and left. But their smug, knowing put downs of Bush and Cheney supporters are less political messages by the movie makers than markers of the characters' personalities. This movie about liberals does not necessarily espouse their world view. But, at heart, this is a love story, not a political drama. Secondly, since we are talking about shallow artists, there is an enormous amount of politico-sexual "art" on display in the film. While this may be offensive to the audience, its presence helps to define the characters themselves. It's not there to titillate the viewer, but to describe the actors.

Delpy, who wrote, directed, produced and acted in the movie, has made a master work that is complex, evocative, real and quite beautiful. She has captured aspects of the French national character that seem quite convincing. She has also aptly captured the emotions and dilemmas of 30-something adults who, under it all, are still looking for meaning, belonging and peace. Goldberg gave a powerful and hilarious performance. He's Ben Stiller with a soul.

If you can put up with the film's politics, you will be amply rewarded. Magnifique!

Those who can write, direct, act, produce and co edit a film are very rare - indeed non existent. Of course there are a few geniuses like Tommy Lee Jones (Three Burials)who can direct and act but they are few and far between. Julie Delpy alas has none of the qualities as mentioned as is demonstrated in this film.

"2 Days In Paris" is nothing more than a two day old, dogs dinner. To be more generous it is a gab-fest with Delpy doing the gabbing at 5000 words per frame. Put aside the cheap cinematography (what photography I hear you say?) and it is nothing more than third rate Woody Allen film from the 1970's except it's on steroids. Once you have gotten over the swing-cam moving left to right - as if the cameraman had been trained to film tennis tournaments - then you can settle down to watch two boring characters self implode amid some of the weakest location settings ever. To be fair, they do take a one second breather about forty-five minutes into the film. If you are watching it on DVD then is the time to have a break for an hour and get yourself primed with a drink for the rest of the film - you'll need it.

This is one of those films that makes one feel like a voyeur at a bus stop. You can hear and see the couple in front of you arguing and you want them to go away because after a while they are plain old annoying. In essence, that is the theme that struggles its way through the film.

Has as been said by others, it is riddled with clichés and stereotypes. The film and the plot has no vision nor lends itself to giving any insights. One suspects that the crude moments in the film are there only to lift the pointless plot out of the doldrums.

It is sad that what had the potential to be a good film has been ruined by Delpy's ego in collaboration with the truly awful acting of the others - except the cat who adapted the minimalist method of acting.

I shall be writing to the DVD distributors and asking them if they will include a pack of spaghetti with each DVD. I think it would help to relieve the boredom if people could knit spaghetti while watching. At least they would have something at the end of the film.

Note to self: Avoid all Delpy films in the future. Send Delpy a catalogue of vari-focal lenses including wide angle. Who knows?

The culture-clash story might have been done before, but this is still a very refreshing and most of the time utterly hilarious movie. Myself and the rest of the theater burst out laughing every couple of minutes, which makes me forgive the few scenes that made me uncomfortable. Definitely not for the faint of heart or easily offended!

The characters might seem over the top at times, but they're still likable and real (as witnessed by the fact that the artwork in the gallery was actually made by Julie Delpy's father). I thought that Julie Delpy's parents stole the show whenever they were on screen, although Delpy and Goldberg both do a very good job.

All in all, it feels like a very personal look at French (or rather, Parisian bohemian) life, and very much worth a viewing. Or even two.

I must say that this not a boring film at all, although I found the endless little quarrels a bit tiresome. It is hard, though, for a non-French person to judge just how much of all this is meant to portray the character of "the French" (if anything like that exists) and how much is mere parody exploiting and playing with the cliché that French people always think about love and sex. For example, is Marion's father supposed to be a prototype or simply a caricature? Knowing this would be of great help in evaluating this movie.

On the other hand, the film is very balanced in its attempt to weigh Marion's delight in experiment against Jack's conservative rationalism with regard to relationships. In other respects, of course, Jack is not rational at all, for example concerning his hypochondria. Whether one wants to call him touchy and easily offended will probably also depend on whether you think that, in the first place, he is being treated badly by all those slightly crazy Parisians or whether you would rather want to say that he is a bit stiff and inhibited.

In any case, this is a nice little film about the difficult task to lead a cross-national relationship and about the fact that thinking you know your partner is not the same as knowing her or his culture.

But don't expect to see a romance like in "Before Sunrise"!!

Julie Delpy excels in '2 Days in Paris' as she writes, directs, produces, composes the music and stars in this romantic bitter/sweet comedy. Opposite Adam Goldberg, who has amongst other things played psycho Eddie in Friends and Private Mellish in 'Saving Private Ryan', Delpy shines as the nerdy photographer who has trouble with her eyes. The two central performances and sharp script means the film flows along at a pretty fast pace with the one liners so frequent you could easily miss the odd one. The situations explored around relationships and family are universal and so easy for anyone to relate to, there are misunderstood physical situations and language barriers which all add to the overall melodrama/comedy unfolding on screen. The film is peppered with brilliant moments from the awkward to the bizarre and the laughs come thick and fast, with Paris as a backdrop the lovers weave in and out of one situation to another always in love yet always on the verve of break-up. Co-starring Delpy's real father as her in film father shows a sense of tightness and a labour of love that comes across in the finished product. Like a cross between something from Woody Allen and Amelie this film has a special naivety full of wonderment juxtaposed with the dark underbelly of life that is at times hard to escape. Whether you laugh or cry you can't fail to be moved by a film so simple in its execution of themes that can, as displayed, be so complicated. Delpy has made something she, and everyone involved, should be very very proud of.