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Review: 2 Days in Paris
Besides turning in a striking performance as a 30-something photographer, Julie Delpy also wrote, co-produced, edited, scored the music and directed 2 Days in Paris, writes Rashid Irani.
2 days in Paris
Cast : Julie Delpy, Adam Goldberg
Direction : Julie Delpy
Rating : ***
Here’s a culture-clash comedy which has the feminine touch of its woman auteur. Besides turning in a striking performance as a 30-something photographer, Julie Delpy also wrote, co-produced, edited, scored the music and directed 2 Days in Paris.
The perceptive script probes the fractious relationship between the gamine French shutterbug (Delpy) and her American boyfriend (Goldberg). On their way home to New York from a vacation in Venice, the couple stop over in Paris. While the flirtatious femme catches up with several former boyfriends and visits her parents (portrayed by the actress-director’s real-life mom and dad Marie Pillet-Albert Delpy), her neurotic lover feels alienated and ill at case.
Their tetchy relationship is depicted with insight and the dialogue is consistently pithy. The narrative is also populated with wacky subsidiary characters like the city’s bigoted taxi drivers and an anti-globalisation activist.
On the downside, the use of flashbacks, voice-over and on-screen graphics are excessive. Also, the climax is a complete cop-out.
Otherwise, though, this valentine to lovers and the city of romance makes for an engrossing matinee.
