2 Days in Paris (2007)

Purely Joyful Movie!

From my favorite movies..

Crappy film

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

After seeing this movie for the third time, and laughing more and more with each viewing, I think I can officially say that I love Julie Delpy. In fact, I will go a step further and announce that she's one of the most talented and interesting artists around. She really can do it all--write, direct, sing, and play guitar. Hell, she even grows old gracefully. Two Days in Paris is hilarious, smart, offensive, dark, and completely ridiculous (see Adam Goldberg) in the best possible way. It's such a simple story, but she brings out the humor so organically, and that's why, like a vintage Woody Allen movie, it doesn't lose its raw pizazz.

French photographer Marion (Julie Delpy) and American interior designer Jack (Adam Goldberg) are visiting her crazy sexually inappropriate parents. Their relationship is having trouble and meeting her flirtatious ex-boyfriends and inappropriate parents does not help.Julie Delpy writes, directs, and apparently does everything else in her little indie. This film takes place in Paris over a 2 day period. The parents (Julie's real life parents) are hilarious. There is a lot of fun making Jack uncomfortable. And Adam Goldberg is always great at playing being uncomfortable. The meetings near the end are problematic coincidences. I'm willing to give that a pass. It is a movie after all. What makes this film is the good fun we have at Jack's expense.

Director Richard Linklater shared writing credits on "Before Sunset" and "Before Sunrise" with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, the actors who played the couple at the heart of his two romantic masterpieces.Flash forward several years and we have Julie Delpy starring in, writing, directing and scoring "Two Days In Paris", an unofficial sequel to Linklater's films.Utilizing Linklater's "walk and talk" technique, the film replicates Linklater's story about a European girl and an American guy sharing intimate moments whilst on a holiday in Europe. She's a Parisian and he's a New Yorker, and as they spend a weekend in her home town we eavesdrop on their conversations, listen to their anxieties and chuckle at some moments of light culture clash comedy.Linklater's duology primarily appealed to young males, but Delpy's, despite utilising a similar style and structure, is a distinctly female thing (on IMDb, females also rank this film higher than males). Her character, with black-rimmed geek glasses and a personality akin to a semi-neurotic or hypochondriac, is your artist's typical self-depreciating view of him/herself. In contrast, her love interest is a gorgeous but sensitive stud, who gets his penis out on screen for the audience. He is squarely the tale's object of affection, whom Delpy punishes herself for not deserving.And so eventually our couple begin to grow apart. Delpy throws in much castration symbolism (a photo in which soaring balloons are mirrored to flaccid genitals being the most obvious one) and subplots about performance anxiety, but it is not her partner who cannot perform, but she who desires to make him anxious. Scarred by previous relationships she retreats from commitment and sabotages her chance for love.Beyond the romance, the film delights in poking fun at both Americans and French. The various tourists and characters whom our couple meet whilst on their holiday convey the impression that all Americans are ignorant and repressed whilst all French are racist snobs. But the private behaviour of our couple cast a complex light on these issues. He may be repressed, but he's trustworthy and longs for commitment. She may be your typical liberated, bourgeois artist, but her inhibitions stem from deep scars.The film is too clumsy and too reliant on gross out humour to compete with Linklater's sensitive romances (and the films of Eric Rohmer, whom Linklater seems influenced by), and its final act doesn't resonate as well as it should, but "2 Days In Paris" is nevertheless an excellent film, featuring two well written characters who speak with refreshing frankness.8/10 – Worth one viewing. Makes a good companion piece to the romances of Linklater, Cassavetes, Rohmer and countless equally good indie romances like "A Little Stiff", "In The City of Sylvia", "All The Real Girls", "In Search of a Midnight Kiss", "Say Anything", "Keith" etc.

I'm a pain in the arse. I liked the scene in this film where Dad Delpy is "keying" the cars that are parked on the sidewalk. Adam Goldberg tells him to run for politics but I like the directness of keying the cars. It puts the power into the peoples hands and out of politician's hands and it saves time. Even though I would never do it. Better to throw eggs. Sure, that means you have to walk around with eggs in your pocket but there's always a price, right?The baffling thing about this film is that Julie Delpy is writing about two neurotics where the girl is a self-centered liar. How odd.In the scene where they are kicked out of the restaurant, her character IS being unreasonable and SHOULD be kicked out.Goldberg says more than once that he knows she's had sex with other men, but why does she have to lie about it? She has a personal voice-over where she acknowledges that it's OK to lie about things if you probably won't be discovered.In the end, the couple seems to stay together because they are too tired to move on to the next drama. In fact, if she'd stop lying, they'd have a pretty good relationship.This is a cute movie for it's nice grasp of family life, past sexual history (where Mom once did Jim Morrison) and idiot cabdrivers. All of the actors were funny and- there was a shot of the mini (?) "Statue Of Liberty" in Paris and I thought they were back in New York and I was disappointed.This is a good movie but one where Delpy casts a woman (herself) as the "bad guy" in the relationship. Is she a saint or something? It's so rare to see a woman intentionally casting herself as flawed. Kind of refreshing.