Non satisfaisant, Paris!

Julie Delpy’s directorial debut 2 Days in Paris had all the ingredients of a good film. Cute male lead [Adam Goldberg of Dazed and Confused, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days], beautiful city, and of course, Julie Delpy herself, already known for her sharp wit as seen in her script contributions to the Richard Linklater film Before Sunset. It seemed that this couldn’t possibly go wrong. Unfortunately, Paris wasn’t that impressive this time around.

I am absolutely in love with French films. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, more than anyone, but a little Bertolucci and Truffaut here and there. The atmosphere of these films is just different compared to the norm. So of course, when I heard there was a French film written and directed by Julie Delpy, I jumped at it. After all, I loved her in both Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Unfortunately, on this one, the overall result felt a bit contrived.

It seemed that Julie Delpy was stuck in Before Sunrise and Before Sunset mode. To those who haven’t seen the movies mentioned, in both films Julie Delpy’s character is kind of like this outspoken, strong-minded, oftentimes vulgar woman who captures Ethan Hawke’s fancy. In 2 Days in Paris, it seemed like the exact same character, with less plot substance.

Basically the story is set around these two lovers, French woman Marion (played by Delpy) and her American boyfriend Jack (Goldberg) who make a 2-day stop in Paris to visit the woman’s parents. During the stop the couple keeps running into Marion’s ex boyfriends, which drives Jack insane. Coupled with this is an overwhelming sense of culture shock on Jack’s part, as he begins to get paranoid about his girlfriend cheating on him and being attacked by terrorists aboard public transportation, which I thought was the only interesting part of the film.

Overall I felt the film was trying too hard. Lots of talking and lots of “this is how we do it in France”, which after a while started to get annoying. It was funny in parts, I’ll give it that, but just a really pretentious film. I had expected something different at least from Delpy, but she had given us a second-rate version of Before Sunset. Exact character, an attempt to show some depth in her point of view of relationship trials, but instead, it was very triste. Adam Goldberg did an okay job for a leading man debut (he’s always been a sidekick in roles), but I felt that his character could been written better.

Basically, my overall reaction is this: it had a good premise, but it was too in love with itself. Kind of like The Darjeeling Limited. It’s still fun to watch, but I don’t think I would get it on DVD. Valiant effort, Miss Delpy, but no cigar.