Set in Paris, written and directed by Julie Delpy and starring Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg, 2 Days In Paris (2007) follows a couple on their unromantic stay in the city of romance. Brilliantly written, directed and acted, the film keeps its audience laughing from beginning to end.
Marion (played by Julie Delpy), a photographer from Paris, lives in New York with her Jewish-American neurotic and hypochondriac interior designer boyfriend, Jack (played by Adam Goldberg). After a holiday in Venice in which they both manage to annoy each other to the bone, the couple stops over in Paris to visit Marion’s family and pick up her cat. In the two days they spend in Marion’s hometown, Jack gets increasingly worried about the fact that his girlfriend has kept in touch with her numerous ex-lovers, and he soon discovers that not speaking French in Paris is quite the inconvenience.
Funnier and much more intelligent than your average romantic comedy, 2 Days In Paris’ screenplay, direction, editing and soundtrack’s composition and performance are signed by Julie Delpy, who also stars as the impulsive Marion. Highly humorous and sarcastic, the film at the same time manages to come across sensible, emotional and weirdly romantic. Avoiding the stereotypical ‘a man and a woman meet, they fall in love, they are torn apart due to a misunderstanding and then get back together for good’, and opting for something more like ‘the man and the woman have gotten to know each other a bit too much, to the extent that they now dislike one another’, Julie Delpy delivers a very realistic and utterly hilarious romantic comedy.
As Marion, the actress is perfect. Offering a particularly strong, funny, but at the same time, believable performance, Delpy’s acting skills are impeccable. And not much can be said about Adam Goldberg, who is definitely one of the funniest comic actors cinema has ever known. His comedy is excellent, and his New York-Jewish neurosis combined with Delpy’s French naturalness, offer a culture clash so amusing that very few comic pairs could have achieved. With a great sense of comic timing and a funnily anxious camera work, 2 Days In Paris is smart and bizarre in every aspect.
In February 2010, Julie Delpy announced to have been working on a sequel, titled 2 Days In New York. The movie was filmed in Manhattan last October and it is now at a post-production stage. Julie Delpy will be playing again Marion, but this time alongside her new on-screen boyfriend, played by Chris Rock. No Adam Goldberg this time around, much to my dismay.
