2 Days in Paris (Delpy, 2007)

[madali]

2 Days in Paris (Delpy, 2007)
IMDB Link

Here are the places Julia Delpy’s name pops up as the maker of this movie. Director, scriptwriter, main actress, producer, composer, editor, and also in the Camera & Electrical Department. Works like these either result in something unique and powerful from one person’s vision or a work extremely personal.

“2 Days in Paris” looks and feels like the latter. The clue is that Julia’s character’s parents are played by Julia’s real parents.

I sometimes feel like these movies might be great for the person making it and maybe a bunch of close friends, but what am I supposed to take out of it? Marion (Julia Delpy) and Jack (Adam Goldberg) are a couple vacationing in Europe, and they decide to stay a bit in France, in Marion’s old apartment with her parents. In these two days their relationship is challenged and they have to get through it.

Problem is that both characters are annoying. Jack keeps whining and complaining about every single thing, while Marion does not seem to know the meaning of respect. As a photographer she had taken a picture of her boyfriend naked with balloons tied to him, and she had given this picture to her parents. She seems sincerely shocked when Jack gets upset at this.

To me it feels like Julia Delpy’s movie is about love, relationship, and the strains of it. Unfortunately, I could not identify with it, because the characters go beyond flawed to just being despicable. I did not watch this movie and wonder about Jack and Marion’s relationship, because I just wanted them to be hit by a car.

"It always fascinated me how people go from loving you madly to nothing at all, nothing. It hurts so much"

2/5

[fizz]

The film lingers in the memory of Linlater's Before Sunrise/Sunset series. It should be watched after you've seen those films as an example of how not to make a film. True, the characters are both really annoying and shameless about their past.

But, and I have to say this, the ending was fantastic. It was honest and hurt like a knife to the chest and the great internal monologue still plays out in my head sometimes.

[madali]

It had hints of "Before Sunset", and I think the honesty of the last monologue was what was most similar to it.

[kaytee]

I remember I started watching this movie and got to the part when her parents enter the picture guess 20 mins in and then there is some French spoken and I didn't have subtitles for it so I switched it off and put it in the to be watched list.

Guess I need to get down and watch it again especially coz the name Linklater is being thrown around.

[madali]

I watched it without the French subs. I wanted to be like Goldberg character, he didnt understand French either

[fizz]

If memory serves me right, the French bits don't really amount to much, but I think the film should be watched as companion piece to Linklater's classic.