When a relationship has passed through the nursery period it can be commonplace for it to become somewhat tumultuous. Once it’s getting further along and you realise that you truly know very little about the person, you begin to ask questions. Some of which can be more damaging than others.
Julie Delpy (Before Sunrise, Killing Zoe, Three Colours Trilogy) has clearly had some experience in these areas, significant enough that she felt compelled to write, produce, direct, star in and edit 2 Days In Paris. She also found time to compose and perform the soundtrack as well. Such commitment may be cynically viewed as an exercise in grotesque vanity, but there is nothing about this movie that would leave the viewer with such an impression. It is without a doubt a carefully thought out, well executed movie that is a lot more intelligent than it lets on.
Adam ‘Oh I know him from stuff, he was y’know, and he was in Friends, yeah, but what was the name of that other one I saw him in?’ Goldberg plays one of his best roles as Jack, an interior designer and amateur photographer. Delpy plays Marion his partner, both left their home of New York to make a small excursion to Venice and then on to Paris, to spend time with Marion’s family.
Goldberg’s paranoia is inimitable; the language barrier offers a far subtler take on most ‘fish out of water’ movies and the free spirited parents (Delpy’s actual mum and dad) threaten at some points to steal the entire film from under the leads. From his inadvertent faux pas concerning Jim Morrison (not realising his prospective mother in law’s not so clandestine liaisons with the notorious frontman) to the father’s perverse artwork, it’s clear that Delpy is taking a playful jibe at her own colourfully bohemian upbringing which brought considerable fame to her at a very young age.
On particularly interesting scene is where Marion (and Julie’s) mother tells Jack that she was one of the ‘343 Bitches’, this was actually the case. The infamous 343 were a group of women who all made a public declaration via manifesto that they had an abortion in 1971. In the France of the time, this made them criminals. The manifesto was written by Simone de Beauvoir (she also signed the document itself), who was arguably a better writer than her long standing partner Jean Paul Sartre (but we’ll save that debate for another day, shall we?), other famous signatories included Catherine Deneuve (Belle Du Jour).
The humour that is to be found in this movie feels genuinely fresh. It seems to have been mistakenly packaged as some sort of romantic comedy, although it leans substantially closer to darkness than the viewer initially expects. The recurrence of abhorrent taxi drivers, the sheer torture that Jack puts himself through upon meeting Marion’s flamboyant and sexually predatory exes and the overall strain put between the couple are all very real, perhaps this is why it can seem both acerbic and assertive in equal measure.
Seek. Watch. Enjoy.
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I was interested in this when it first was made but never sought it out. I really like both of the main actors, they always come across as very real. This is another one I’ll have to find a copy of. Great in depth review yet again Colin!
Thanks Margo! I was so surprised by this, it really was a sublime little movie. Delpy is very underrated as it is, but this really cements her status as a very talented filmmaker and writer. Let me know what you make of it after you see it.
Will do!