Film

Judging from her glowing, rambling turn in Before Sunset, Julie Delpy seems born to wander Paris in a state of blond disarray. So let’s not begrudge her a similar bit in her own feature—not her directorial debut, but the first with enough panache to serve as one. Delpy’s fans will respond to her cosmopolitan briskness, to her aptness in casting Dazed and Confused’s Adam Goldberg as her bickering boyfriend (thus creating an uncommonly believable, neurotic pair). The two actors play 35-year-olds, Marion and Jack, trapped in what seems to be the flaming-out of a serious relationship; they’ve reached the point where foreplay is less cooing than complaining. On vacation in Paris, Jack meets Marion’s naughty, liberated parents (both played by Delpy’s real-life mom and dad, obviously cards), who fan Jack’s persecution complex by teasing him mercilessly.

When 2 Days in Paris bops along via the young couple’s constant sparring, it’s fun and savage—like a proper, antisentimental screwball comedy. Delpy has a weakness for jokey, plucked-string “farce” music that gets a little annoying, but her tone is otherwise light and quick. Alas, she has a much more traditional drama in mind, and when the anticipated breakup happens, you feel the air seep out of the film with a wheeze. For almost an hour, Delpy chases the spirits of Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell; why, then, an ultimate fondness for Ralph Bellamy? Delpy has soulfulness to spare. She needs not prove it.