Julie Delpy’s “2 Days in Paris” is a sophisticated treat. Written, directed by and starring the French actress best known for “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset,” this latest film comes across as a contemporary screwball comedy — with a French accent.

It’s the story of Marion (Delpy), an insecure photographer, and Jack (Adam Goldberg), her neurotic American boyfriend. The action focuses on Jack’s concerns regarding Marion’s sexual history, particularly his discomfort at the presence of several of her old boyfriends.

While Delpy’s character is reminiscent of the one she portrayed in the “Before” films directed by Richard Linklater, her approach as a writer-director has a lot more in common with the seriocomic scenarios of Woody Allen.

This could be the breakthrough role for Goldberg (”Waking Life”). It’s hard to imagine another actor bringing off Jack’s unique blend of charisma and contrariness so perfectly and so endearingly.

“2 Days in Paris” has plenty to say about modern relationships, romantic and otherwise. It’s lighthearted, but not lightweight.

Source: stltoday.com

Most American film fans know Julie Delpy from her work in the sweetly romantic Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. So 2 Days in Paris, her latest movie as writer-director-star, won’t come as much of a surprise. It’s exactly the sort of work we’d expect from the pretty blond so adept at deep, deep thoughts and dreamy come-ons in those two romances.

Delpy pairs up with the acridly amusing Adam Goldberg for a story of a New York couple who stop in her hometown, Paris, on the way home from a lovers’ trip to Venice. While there, Jack (Goldberg) unhappily discovers her romantic history, the number of French men who never got over their fling/affair/tryst or whatever with the enchanting Marion.

His French isn’t great, so he’s oblivious when taxi drivers hit on her. But he has the good sense to go to his phrase book to check all her text messages and translate them. Not a fun time for Jack.
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There’s a great moment in Julie Delpy’s “2 Days in Paris” when Marion, a French photographer, is about to have the big, teetering-on-the-edge-of-breakup talk with her high-strung boyfriend, Jack, played by Adam Goldberg.

In a voice-over, Marion steps aside and says, “To sum up the four hours of discussion that followed . . .” For some filmmakers, that would be a cheat, an easy way to cover the gaps in a screenplay with some narration. For Delpy, the writer-director who plays Marion, it’s a lovely, eloquent scene as she sums up the confounding crescendos of love, lust and relationships through a series of funny insights in the style of Woody Allen.

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Before SIFF officially opened, I had already heard a few things about Julie Delpy’s feature directorial debut. First, I heard that it was almost exactly like Before Sunset. Second, I heard that it was okay, but the ending of the film ruined it completely.

Neither one of these things is true.

Yes, this movie involves a lot of dialogue between a man and a woman, and yes, it also involves a lot of walking around in Paris - but the similarities to Linklater’s film end there.

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The Hoax is the real thing. It’s a breezy, engaging caper. It’s like a heist film of the 1970s, but the pilferers are literary men not bank robbers.

Set in the early ‘70s, The Hoax rediscovers one of the essential themes of that era — it is anti-establishment. That is a theme that has been absent from our society for many years. It shouldn’t have been; it’s still quite relevant, isn’t it?

The Hoax is based on real-life shenanigans. In 1972 Clifford Irving burst upon the literary scene as the writer whom reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes had chosen to pen his autobiography. There were little means to authenticate Irving’s claim that Hughes had chosen him. Irving said that Hughes was totally incommunicado, except to him. The meetings between Hughes and Irving were a secretive process. Supposedly Hughes had established an ironclad set of rules that kept scrutiny at bay — or so said Irving. And Irving had forged a letter from Hughes that gave him authorization. As the publishing hounds bit at his heels, Irving kept changing his strategy to stay a tantalizing step ahead of them. He led them on a breathless romp.

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