2 Days In Paris
Director: Julie Delpy
Rated: MA
From Wed 26 Dec


The culture-clash routine has been explored in film more times than anyone would care to count, with every lovely 'Junebug' or 'Lost In Translation' being met with a stagnant rehash like 'Le Divorce'. How you feel about seeing '2 Days In Paris', actor Julie Delpy's directorial debut, approach such well-traversed territory will depend on your tolerance for watching foreigners try to make sense of their surroundings, as well as your tolerance for romantic comedies, and your tolerance for fish-out-of-water family situations. That's not to say Delpy is clumsy in her manipulation of the numerous cinematic tropes - on the contrary, '2 Days In Paris' is a nimble film that draws solid belly laughs - but this is not a particularly new film, even if it is sharply written.

The familiarity is apparent almost immediately upon describing the story. Delpy plays Marion, a slightly gawky, awkward woman with an equally awkward, quietly tense boyfriend of roughly two years, Jack (Adam Goldberg, who manages to wring much comedy from understating many of his lines). As the title would suggest, the couple are visiting Delpy's family in Paris, which puts added pressure on Marion and Jack's relationship; because the American-born Jack is isolated by a language barrier, because Jack and Marion keep bumping into a string of Marion's ex-boyfriends, and sometimes because of both at once.

One particularly amusing scene features Jack and Marion sharing a dinner of rabbit stew with her parents. Marion's father cracks jokes about Jack in French, and Jack asks edgily, as the carrots are served, "so we're going to eat the bunny's food, too?". In another, Marion gets into an extremely heated argument with a cab driver she perceives as racist, before unconvincingly reassuring Jack that everything is fine. Such scenes convincingly add to the strain on Marion and Jack's relationship during their two-day stay, allowing the conflict to grow without feeling too contrived.

Some scenes tax the film's credibility - one involving Jack catching a male friend of Marion's trying to find a contact lens he dropped on her sweater comes to mind. Nonetheless, the relationship feels organic enough for Jack and Marion's confrontation and resolution at film's end to seem authentic, and '2 Days In Paris' proves just long enough to avoid overstaying its welcome.

Brian O'Neill