2 Days In Paris (2007)

2 Days In Paris
A Review by Ben Hunter

4½ Out of 5 Stars

It’s the early hours of the day and Marion (Julie Delpy) and her boyfriend Jack (Adam Goldberg) are on vacation, asleep on a train coming from Venice.  They sleep like two people who’ve known each other for a while, not like people who’ve just met and are cautious about their actions around the other … even while asleep. So after 2 years with that someone whom you’ve now become accustomed to, you think you’d know him or her pretty well right?

Dealing with the insecurities, the deceit, what’s to be shared, and what’s to be open and honest in a romantic relationship, 2 Days In Paris follows a couple throughout the romantic city as they go through the actions of two people learning about each other during the course of these “two days in Paris”. 

As a French native, writer/director and star Delpy gives us a nice look into her real life.  So a woman taking her boyfriend home in France to meet her family, a boyfriend she met in America. She introduces her movie boyfriend to her real parents, playing her movie parents.  We learn about her need for glasses in the film, which also translate into reality.  But someone wouldn’t know these things unless inquired apart from just viewing the film.  Nonetheless, it’s clear that she put her heart into this story as the two bicker in a loving way that builds to climatic finish, making the very romantic city seem not quite so romantic. 

With its comedic intellect I thought of this film as more romantic type of Woody Allen flick, yet without the extreme quirkiness that Allen brings to his films and replaced with the dramatic yet romantic elegance that Delpy derives in a flick of her quality and in her own quirky way. 

I loved how Delpy embraced her heritage and naturally the film is mostly in French since the two spend time in a French area.  Talk about the film having an art factor with the foreign aspect; yet it has a down to earth storyline that we can grasp and doesn’t go over our heads because it’s “too artsy”.  The hint of her native accent still subtly present was great to witness as she acted as a translator for Jack as they ran into a lot of her ex-boyfriends.  We learn that to still be good friends with previous relationship partners is common in French culture.  But with what’s to be shared and what we think isn’t in a relationship and now having a language barrier to deal with made for great writing and excellent chemistry between Marion & Jack as the scenes with her ex lovers, her family, friends and those alike in Marion’s world that were apart of her life in some way add to the deception and insecurity of Marion & Jack’s relationship.  The ex lovers force Jack to think the logline of the film, “He knew Paris was for lovers.  He just didn’t think they were all hers.”

Delpy cleverly writes a voice over narrative in the end where she expresses how she’s fascinated by how people can fall out of being madly in love with one another.  How they’ll move on and meet new people to eventually forget about their previous lover completely.  But how there comes a time when you just can’t recover from another break up.  If that person annoyed you the majority of the time, you miss their annoyances more so than their qualities. 

Do they stay together?  Do they break up?

2 Days in Paris

Romance, 96 Minutes, R

Written & Directed by: Julie Delpy

Cast: Julie Delpy, Adam Goldberg, Daniel Bruhl, Marie Pillet, Albert Delpy,

Alexia Landeau