Maybe it’s a good thing that Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke didn’t end up together at the end of “Before Sunrise,” and maybe didn’t at the end of “Before Sunset” either. Skip ahead to the next day, and the perfect transatlantic couple could have ended up like the bickering pair in Delpy’s wry filmmaking debut, “2 Days in Paris.”

If “Before Sunset” gave us Paris in all its Bohemian romance, Delpy almost gleefully shows us the dingy, crabby flip side of the city here. And if “Sunset” and “Sunrise” showed us the joy of two people connecting, “Paris” gives us two lovers continually pried apart by cultural differences and their own raging neuroses.

Delpy, who stars, wrote, directed, edited and did the music for the film, is Marion, a native Parisian who now lives in New York with her American boyfriend, Jack (Adam Goldberg). On their way back from what sounds like a not-so-hot vacation in Venice, the two stop in Paris for a couple of days to visit Marion’s parents (played by Delpy’s real-life parents) and tour the City of Light.

It’s a disaster almost from the word “allez.” The couple seem to run into every worst French stereotype imaginable ndsh every friend of Marion’s is rude, every cabbie is racist, every man on the street is putting the moves on Marion in broad daylight. In response, Jack does what every American does when he’s tested abroad; he becomes even more American, whining and perpetually critical of European society and its plumbing.

Delpy and Goldberg, once a real-life couple, have a dynamite rapport that carries most of the film, even when they’re arguing over the mold on her bathroom wall. (”It’s like blue cheese. It’s probably good for you.”) Their long, funny conversations are reminiscent of Delpy and Hawke in the Richard Linklater films, only with much more comic tension. Delpy even seems to tweak the noses of those films; when Marion launches into a long Linklaterian speech about attraction, Jack pretends to doze off. “It’s like dating public television,” he whines.

Delpy proves to have a deft hand with comedy, satirizing her home city while still showing us it’s a pretty great place to live. I loved the small comic touches in the film, like the guy on the Metro who just stares at them for no reason. Some of the larger gags seemed a little too sit-commy, like a misunderstanding over some X-rated messages on Marion’s cell phone. And after steering the film into some darker waters at the end of the film, Delpy seems to suddenly remember that she’s making a romantic comedy and tacks on a happy ending.

But this is still a very assured debut, and moviegoers who have enjoyed Delpy’s sharp, winsome performances will be glad to see that those qualities extend to her filmmaking as well.

Source: madison.com