2 Days In Paris

Acclaimed French actress Julie Delpy surprised many when she debuted as a writer-director with this enjoyable comedy about neurotic romance. She plays Marion, a French photographer based in New York on holiday with her American boyfriend, Jack (Adam Goldberg). They stop at her parents’ house in Paris, where Jack encounters Marion’s oddball Bohemian parents while she runs into every ex-boyfriend she’s ever laid. Jack’s culture shock with Marion’s sex-obsessed painter dad and her flighty mum (she slept with Jim Morrison) is predictable but funny, especially given that these are Delpy’s actual parents. However, the meat of this film lies in Jack’s insecurity every time Marion runs into an ex, whether it’s a passing flirtation on the street or a not-so-subtle overture at a house party. Goldberg is hilarious as the hapless mensch whose facial expressions are enough to elicit laughs. Delpy is equally good as the high-strung yet temperamental Marion when she picks an argument with a racist Parisian cab driver or launches into a restaurant fight with an ex who ditched her years ago for a too-much-younger girl. There’s a lot of Woody Allen circa 1977 here, though Delpy’s comedy is not as cutting as his and her observations about relationships aren’t as sharp. They are however, sincere. The film is about a couple drifting apart and questions whether any two people can ever really know each other. Though this DVD lacks an audio commentary, it compensates with a detailed 24-minute interview with Delpy, who explains the uphill struggle to finance this film and how much of herself she invested into her two main characters. Otherwise, there’s the obligatory theatrical trailer (plus trailers from four other films that annoyingly precede the menu).