2 Days in Paris
Doing for Paris what Woody Allen did for Manhattan, actress Julie Delpy has created - as writer and director - a zippy, romantic comedy with 2 Days In Paris.
Delpy (Before Sunset,Three Colours White, Killing Zoe) has cast herself as the free-spirited Paris-born photographer Marion, who lives most of the year in New York with boyfriend, Jack (Adam Goldberg), a shaggy, heavily tattooed interior designer. Their would-be romantic week in Venice didn't go exactly as planned - the food didn't agree with Jack, and when he was well enough to go out he was so focused on capturing the trip with his digital camera he forgot to experience it.
Both have higher hopes for their last two days in Paris with Marion showing Jack her home town, where they plan on staying in Marion's one bedroom apartment directly upstairs from her parents. Two lovers in the city of romance - what could go wrong? Jack is a classic neurotic: a hypochondriac with a susceptibility to migraines, whose view of the world is as rigid as his taste. Jack, who doesn't speak French, becomes uneasy whenever Marion lapses into her native language. Marion is highly-strung and a big flirt. Rabidly left-wing, she has no patience for those who don't share her politics.
There can't be many comedies which are so funny in two languages simultaneously. Lunch at Marion's parents' apartment causes some comic problems of miscommunication. Marion's mother and father bicker with her in French, Jack bickers with her in English, and the audience is in the privileged position of seeing the scene from both angles. Throw in the problem that everywhere Marion and Jack go, they seem to bump into at least one of Marion's ex-lovers. Jack grows increasingly jealous and Marion grows increasingly defensive. Will they be able to salvage their relationship? Will they ever have sex again? Or will they merely manage to perfect the art of arguing?
The result is an utterly charming comedy of sexual manners, with terrific witty dialogue and smart, observational filmmaking. The chemistry between Delpy and Goldberg is excellent, evoking the screwball antics of the Woody Allen-Diane Keaton partnership of the '70s. 2 Days In Paris is a refreshing and original twist on the relationship movie, being teasing, thoughtful, effortlessly stylish and bitingly funny.
