Ah, Julie Delpy. She acts, in French and English. She directs. She writes. She even writes music. She’s done all of those things in this most unromantic of comedies that pairs her with Adam Goldberg. Don’t mind a lot of bickering and you’ll find this frequently funny and sometimes more.
Superficially, 2 Days is like Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, the brainy Richard Linklater romancers in which a charming Delpy starred with Ethan Hawke. But charm isn’t what the actress/auteur is aiming for. Goldberg, as the American boyfriend, is a crankier, hairier variation on Woody Allen’s persona. On her home turf, he marvels at number of ex-boyfriends they run into, and her surprisingly good relationships with them. Delpy’s own character could be called flighty.
The plot is beside the point. Dividing their time between visiting with her colorful but not dysfunctional family (Delpy’s real parents act these roles), attending parties, and hitting a tourist attraction or two, this semi-happy couple hash out their relationship issues, dis each other’s nationalities (and sometimes their own), and generally talk a lot (frequently about sex). Obviously, this won’t appeal to everyone. Occasionally, I questioned whether the characters would behave as they do; the supporting characters in particular seem unnaturally colorful. Between this and Rush Hour 3, one could get the idea that Parisians drove cabs just to have a captive audience for their rants. But what I did like was that Delpy, as writer-director, doesn’t take sides. It’s not clear who we are supposed to agree with, or which of her characters’ sometimes questionable attitudes are hers. (Except, I’d guess, their mutual contempt for George W. Bush.) Probably people will differ about which of these characters is more sympathetic, whether the couple should stay together, and whether French people are really like that.
I’ll still take Before Sunset over this, but it’s something different.
IMDB link
reviewed 8/23/07–8/30/07
No comments:
Post a Comment