Two Days in Paris
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Movie Reviews of Two Days in Paris
Movie Review: I don't want to spend two days with this couple
Summary: 2 Stars
A young couple, Marion (Julie Delpy) and Jack (Adam Goldberg), find their relationship imperiled during a visit to Marion's home town of Paris. Jack is neurotic and insecure; Marion is flighty and insensitive. Both are whiny and judgmental. An amusing film could be made about this couple, but writer/director Julie Delpy doesn't seem to realize how irritating they are and wants us to love and identify with them instead.
There are a couple of strong points here. Delpy's real life parents (Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet) are wonderful as her fictional parents. Also, the depictions of Paris's cab drivers, restaurants, and street life make it feel like a real city, not merely a picturesque backdrop for romance and intrigue. But that's not enough to save this self-indulgent bore of a film.
Movie Review: Exactly what the title says
Summary: 2 Stars
This movie is exactly what the title says: 2 days in Paris in the life of a couple of hysteric, insecure and basically unbearable individuals.
No plot, forced situations, a tad of overacting.
Some American viewership is granted by the role of Adam Goldberg, who plays the perplexed, French-challenged fiancée.
Barely worth your time.
Movie Review: disappointed
Summary: 2 Stars
Found the movie not as funny as I thought it would be. Also too exaggerated to the point of uneasiness where I didn't even recognized the French even though I'm a native from France.Movie Review: A far less charming Before Sunset
Summary: 1 Stars
Maybe it was intentionally played out as such, but this film left me disappointed and bored. Not the least of the reasons for the ennui is that Delpy already made this film, much more effectively, with Ethan Hawke under Richard Linklater's direction. Supposedly this film, as with Sunset, is somewhat based on her romance with the male protagonist. Maybe it helps the drama to know that Hawke left Uma Thurman for Delpy and that the pivotal rant on the riverboat rang with an authenticity that one can not make up. Maybe this boyfriend, Greenberg, is as neurotica and hypochnodriac as he is played. The result is that Sunset is emtionally engaging while 2 Days seems like it's never going to end.
Both Delpy and Greenberg essay stereotypes. He is the shlub hybrid of Woody Allen crossed with Jerry Seinfeld, without any of the redeeming characteristics of either. He's not that funny, and all I could feel after every moment of him on film was oy. If this is based on real life, whatever did Delpy see in this guy? Delpy for her part goes from the fast talking, liberated lover who still carried a torch lit by a sense of guilt and revenge in Sunset to just a fast talking and shallow promiscuous bonbon in 2 Days, a French blonde pretending to be Woody Allen. Not my cup of doppio I am afraid. Both characters are relentlessly grating. Nails down a chalk board the entire time they are on film. The scene of her getting him to put on a condom is possibly the least funny sexual comedy ever recorded. He gives up. I did too, and the film had hardly gone 30 minutes. It got worse as it went on.
And while the city of Paris was a notable supporting player in the Sunset film, the city this time looks like if it could get out of this movie it would. More's the pity this wasn't filmed someplace more grim, as there's nothing to laugh at here.
Delpy wears glasses and has an ugly astigmatism and is somewhat autistic according to the storyline. None of that means much or explains much, but there you have it. Supposedly she took up photography and then Greenberg usurped that role on whatever trip this is supposed to be. Perhaps that is a political statement on US/Franco relations. Perhaps I'm hoping she might actually have been reaching to say something. In any case, it is a far cry from the story that unfolds in Sunset as two lovers reunite at first just to find out what happened to each other and then come through the anger and recrimination of missed opportunities and settled decisions that have imprisoned each while the other always hoped for another chance. This is just two self-absorbed, mean spirited whiners, ugly american nails ugly french tart. I am reminded of the Eric Idle bit in the tourist sketch about the guy who whines and whines in a stream of consciousness about Whatley's red ale and they don't make the scones like they do in Dorset and.....
Hopefully Delpy is capable of better. Maybe give up on the old boyfriend routine. She isn't Joni Mitchell in film, so leave the forlorn romances to someone else. That or just do such films with Hawke. There was a real chemistry present that is conspicuous by its absence here. The only saving graces of this film are her parents, who are deliciously off the rive gauche throughout the movie, and the actress who plays her sister. Mom's a little nuts, and Dad has obviously OD'd on Cialis. The sister is as much of a hoot as Christopher Walkin was as Diane Keaton's brother in Annie Hall. That's small compensation for enduring Delpy and Greenberg.
Movie Review: Embarrassing (for Delpy)
Summary: 1 Stars
First half of the picture is OK, somewhat entertaining and funny but after that, when it's more about the couple relationship, everything gets confused and uninteresting. Delpy is everywhere in the movie but has little to say beyond the usual clichés. And why this recurrent class-racism towards taxi drivers?
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Delpy connaît bien les États-Unis où elle habite, certes avec des interruptions, mais depuis ses études (ce qui doit faire une petite vingtaine d''années). Elle est donc très bien placée pour faire un film sur un Gringo découvrant les Français. C''est bien mené, bien vu et drôle pendant la première moitié du film. Malheureusement ensuite le film s''embrouille et perd de sa substance et donc de son intérêt. En effet, la personnalité de cette jeune femme (au demeurant fort bonne actrice) n''est pas assez dense et il est dommage qu''elle imprègne tout le film : Delpy a fait le film, l'a monté, a fait une partie de la musique et y fait jouer ses parents. Même si on ne sait rien de sa vie privée et de ce qu''elle a vraiment mis de ses expériences dans le film, elle se montre trop pour qu''on ne sache pas séparer Delpy de son personnage Marion. Le seul intérêt du film est ce qu''une expatriée voit de la France et la réalisatrice aurait dû se limiter à cet aspect, surtout que son acteur, Adam Goldberg, est crédible (sans plus cependant ; habitué des séries télévisées qui ont fait connaître son visage, il essaye de s''en sortir en jouant un personnage de sous-Woody Allen auquel on a la charité de croire). Le petit monde parisien est bien croqué, malgré les clichés bobos sur les chauffeurs de taxi ; ils sont la cible d''un étonnant « racisme de classe », très courant à Paris il faut le dire. Ce qui est moins bien vu est tout ce qui a trait au couple et comme l''histoire à ce propos prend beaucoup de place à la fin et qu''elle n''est pas assez structurée, la dynamique du film en pâtit. Deux moments désagréables sont un chauffeur de taxi qui n''aimant personne ne peut être qu''antisémite et un bourgeois expatrié qui, étant cadre, ne peut être qu''amateur d''adolescentes thaïlandaises (bons et mauvais expatriés ? on a deviné qui faisait partie du premier groupe). Autre chose d'étonnant : une constante vulgarité et beaucoup de gros mots hors de propos (les parents sont étonnamment et inutilement orduriers).
En bref, elle n''aurait pas dû s''exposer ainsi.