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2 Days in Paris (2007)

Director: Julie Delpy

Time Out rating

Average user rating

14 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Julie Delpy’s second feature as a writer-director is a smart and spiky self-reflective comedy about Marion, a Parisienne photographer living in New York (Delpy) who, en route from a holiday in Venice, gives her American boyfriend, interior designer Jack (Adam Goldberg), a whirlwind tour of Paris, her family and her friends. The roads they tread, as they walk and talk in the city over a couple of days à la Richard Linklater’s ‘Before Sunset’ (which, tellingly, Delpy co-wrote in 2004 with Linklater and Ethan Hawke), are minefields of cultural misunderstandings, ex-boyfriends, ex-hippy parents and taxi drivers that are racist, homophobic, xenophobic or predatory.

Partly a study of cross-national relationships and partly a homecoming comedy on Delpy’s part, ‘Two Days in Paris’ neatly balances stabs at both America and the French. ‘Which one of these looks more Godard?’ asks Jack as he tries on two pairs of sunglasses and prepares to visit Jim Morrison’s grave at Père Lechaise. Marion, meanwhile, tries hard to argue, with classic French sophistry, that a blow-job in her past is nothing compared to either the war in Iraq or the threat of avian flu.

The dynamic between Goldberg and Delpy has a light, improvisational touch to it, but the hit-rate of Delpy’s wit suggests that ‘Two Days in Paris’ is tightly scripted from personal experience. A flurry of bit-parts keeps the momentum flowing: a succession of cabbies represent the less palatable elements of French society, while a line-up of Marion’s ex-love interests provide a necessary level of poetic pretension. It’s only during the last half hour, when the mood turns more introspective, that the narrative goes a little flaccid. That said, Delpy wisely draws matters to a close without recourse to much melodrama or hysteria and thankfully forgets the quirkier tics offered by the first few minutes

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 1932: August 29-September 4 2007

User reviews of this film

Technoguy said...

Posted on Apr 02 2008 18:53 Some mildly amusing anecdotes about differences between the cultures.Woody Allen as Elliot Gould(Goldberg).Delphy suggests the queasy neuroticism of the Americans,their fear of germs,means they cannot face the facts like the raffish,bohemian,scruffy French who love their food eg braised rabbit's heads,baby pigs.They also live healthily in germ-laden environments.That Delphy was able to send herself up and satirise the Americans,she has her own parents play her parents as ex-hippies.She is bilingual and has many panting ex-boyfriends,he is anal and repressed about sex.There were some funny bits,she also wrote,directed and acted in the film but I felt this was very wearying,it's all been done before,it was superficial,clever but ultimately pointless,perhaps like Delphy's life?Perhaps she will do more serious stuff?

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Peter Kidd said...

Posted on Oct 22 2007 15:32 The other reviews suggest that you'll love it or hate it; decide for yourself if you're willing to risk it. I thought it was not as bad as many people suggest, and had *lots* of laugh-out-loud moments. Some people seem to have taken it far too seriously: Delpy knows she is portraying people as stereotypes, for example, but she's lived in Paris and New York, so she knows that those stereotypes do exist in both countries.

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joel said...

Posted on Oct 22 2007 15:29 Even the girly girlfriend found this disappointing and the ending...what ending? Could not get to like any of the characters much (parents were best) and now I know why I hate Woody Allen films. Don't bother

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andy p said...

Posted on Sep 26 2007 16:22 This is a facile vanity project for Delpy. Avoid like la peste! Almost as bad as Atonement, the English equivalent in cultural mainstream self-indulgence. If you want to see a real French art film, which has something profound to say about the world and grips as it says it, catch the amazing Flandres.

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Leona Luk said...

Posted on Sep 09 2007 18:22 Delpy did good having Goldberg as her leading man - really truly, who doesn't love Adam Goldberg? After that, one will find an excellent film about love and the ones we end up with. I think this is best for the 30 somethings - it would probably not resonate quite as much for those still wandering the world in their 20s.

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ecs said...

Posted on Sep 09 2007 13:07 It's hard to see why this one got on the recommended list. It's just a collection of scenes, filled with stereotypes that overwhelm the clever lines here and there. And the ending has to rely on a voiceover to make its rather obvious point. Save your money and time and wait to see it as inflight entertainment when on a long flight somewhere...

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Jenny said...

Posted on Sep 08 2007 17:51 I thought the film was funny and entertaining at first, but it seemed to drag a little at the end, maybe that's because I needed the toilet though. Lolz. I wouldn't watch it again, but it was alright. :) However, some people walked out of the cinema before it even finished!! and there were only about 8 of us in the cinema.

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Beth said...

Posted on Sep 07 2007 14:28 Lighten up people.It's a comedy! And a funny one at that. Also, very touching in places.

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meerkatz said...

Posted on Sep 07 2007 11:36 only thing more boring than this film was Dominiques review ......yawn......this combo for a movie and a meal .....wheres me pistol lol xx

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soapsuds said...

Posted on Sep 06 2007 10:32 It's not cool but it is clever and it is funny. It's just great entertainment and laugh out loud feel good comedy. Nothing wrong with that

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JENNY said...

Posted on Sep 05 2007 19:49 Unbelievably disappointing. None of the characters were engaging, it was painful to watch and I kept checking my watch to see when it would end. A real missed opportunity.

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Dominique said...

Posted on Sep 04 2007 09:37 Before Sunrise was one of my favourite films and when I read the reviews for 2 Days in Paris, and discovered to what extent Julie Delpy had been involved in this film, I was very excited to see it: a French woman director, auteur, producer, editor, composer and star of her own film...quite an achievement or so the reviews led me to believe. What a disappointment!
I am half French and very much straddling the space between cultures and always interested in what the 'exiled' French have to observe about themselves. Delpy's observations in this film, were the most obvious and shallow cliches imaginable. No new light or intelligent angles were presented on any debate: whether it be about the situation in France, the French, The Americans, the 'terrorists' or the global economy. It was so badly written and so atrociously acted especially by Delpy, and I am bilingual so I could understand the nuances of her acting in French: this new 'method' of melodramatic, bordering on the hysterical, over-emotional, over-acted and completely indigestible, also witnessed recently in La Vie en Rose, seems to be popular amongst french actresses. The whole film made me feel like I was getting a lecture from someone who had skimmed over a few daily papers and tabloid headlines, watched a little of the sensationalist TV about the 'state of the world' as well as too many american sitcoms and then decided they had some grand idea for a 'cross-cultural' credo, all that infused with a hint of philosophical thought (which never goes anywhere) about our reality and the 'image world'.
It seemed as if Delpy had started out by writing some statements about her rather naive and uninformed political idealogy, a few cliched observations on her culture (like the fact that there are strikes all the time...yes we all know that, there is something more interesting though to deduce from it, and the french character, than just stating the obvious) and then tried to link all her unsophisticated and tedious conclusions into this film. Every quip has the most obvious subtext, even the clothes are full of messages about her simplistic politics (the guantanamo bay t-shirt, the Bush/Cheney t-shirt, etc.). Julie, if you want to do everything, the first thing is to write a decent script, then to act it properly, to be critical and honest with yourself and to erase your own ego and constant rhetoric in order to give the viewer some point of entry into the story, the majority of the audience is not so stupid that they need to spend almost 2 hours being lectured by someone who has nothing insightful to add to the debate.

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rich k said...

Posted on Sep 03 2007 10:36 Is a trilby a kind of cake?

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Joe said...

Posted on Aug 29 2007 14:57 Can't wait to see Goldberg in this.

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