Review of 2 Days in Paris (2007) by Chads. — 06 Feb 2008

Thanks to Julie Delpy's flimsy singing voice, and even flimsier guitar-playing; the world has "Once", which to me, is "Before Sunset"(or "...Sunrise") with music. Marion(Delpy) doesn't sing in "2 Days in Paris", but she walks and talks like the anti-Celene, and her tattooed, hirsute boyfriend Jack(Adam Goldberg) is the anti-Jesse(Ethan Hawke), a misanthrope who would probably role his eyes if Marion wrote him a waltz.

What "Before Sunset" and its evil doppleganger have in common is Delpy, who on her maiden directing venture, set out to demolish the romanticized notions that domestic filmmakers have about American men and their, ooh-la-la, French girlfriends.

"2 Days in Paris" plays like a commentary on the Richard Linklater trilogy(if you count Jesse and Celine's cameo in "Waking Life") from an insider's point-of-view(after all, Delpy was born in France).

"Before Sunset" is about idealized love; untested love, because Jesse only thinks he knows her; whereas in "2 Days in Paris", Jack only thought he knew his girlfriend. Real love is having to deal with your lover's baggage.

In the same amount of time it took for Jesse to fall in love with Celine(two days and a night), Jack falls a little out of love with Marion; as each notch on his girlfriend's bedpost he meets in the flesh, renders him more and more impotent, when Paris slowly reveals itself to be the city of promiscuous sex, not the city of romance.