2 DAYS IN PARIS (Julie Delpy). 96 minutes. Opens Friday (August 10). Rating: NNN
What do you get if you cross Annie Hall with Chasing Amy and set it in the City of Light? Julie Delpy ‘s 2 Days in Paris .
Perhaps this is unfair. Delpy, wearing the tricorne writer/director/star hat, has more visual flair in her pinky toe than Kevin Smith has in his whole beard, and near the end of the film she gets a surprisingly moving performance out of co-star Adam Goldberg . But to say Delpy’s got a new take on relationships would be a lie.
Marion (Delpy) and Jack (Goldberg) are American-based lovers rounding off a vacation in Marion’s hometown of Paris. As she reconnects with her family, friends and ex-lovers, Jack feels increasingly isolated and jealous. Things come to a crisis after he meets two of Marion’s exes at a party.
It’s true that lovers in American rom-coms rarely – okay, never – chide themselves for their “bourgeois” feelings. So watching intelligent, sensitive people with a sense of perspective about their problems is refreshing.
But using cultural and linguistic barriers as metaphors for love troubles is hardly breaking new ground, and for much of the film Goldberg does his standard Woody-Allen-only-angrier routine that’s wearing as thin as Allen’s own shtick. The best you can say for 2 Days In Paris is that while it says nothing new, it says it with style.
