Can This Romance Last? New York's Upper West Side Meets Paris' West Bank

By Jesse Tisch

Review of  2 Days in Paris . Written and directed by Julie Delpy.

No one dies in  2 Days in Paris , starring Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg, nor does anyone make it to the credits unscathed. Not the two main characters; not a rabbit that gets skinned for a lovely French dinner; not several cabbies who are upbraided in strongly worded subtitles. So forget those Francophilic films from the 1970s. This postcard from Paris might be four words long: Get me outta here!

Julie Delpy (L) and Adam Goldberg star as former lovers attempting to rekindle their relationship in 2 Days in Paris . Photo courtesy Samuel Goldwyn Films.

When we first meet Jack (Goldberg), he's sneezing and kvetching his way across Paris with his girlfriend Marion. Jack is half-Jewish and all-nebbish; with his scruffy beard and "Visit Guantanamo Bay" t-shirt, he's every bit the aging hipster. He's not religious (Jack wouldn't recognize the inside of a shul), but he's a master of the Jewish art of defusing awkward situations with humor. He wears sarcasm like a jacket.

His girlfriend (Delpy) is French, and though she lives with him in New York, she's proof that you can take the girl out of France, but not vice-versa. She's a walking fount of liberal bromides, and when Jack gives wrong directions to tourists with "Bush/Cheney" t-shirts, she coos her approval. Politics isn't an issue for this couple; sexual politics is. As it happens, Marion is either insatiably randy or all of her boyfriends live in the same section of Paris she grew up in. Either way, she and Jack keep bumping into them (the ex-boyfriends) at parties, restaurants, etc.

As suspicious text messages pile up on Marion's cell phone, Jack becomes paranoid--or is he perceptive?--that Marion hasn't completely severed her connection to past flings. Goldberg and Delpy dated in real life, and their performances feel so natural, it's easy to forget they're acting . Marooned at a dinner party with Marion's friends, Jack quips that "Technically, I'm not Jewish. My mother is Catholic."

"Do you think Hitler would have cared?" his interlocutor retorts, and what follows is pitch-perfect:

French guy : He would have sent you to the camps anyway.

Jack : Huh. I never liked camp.

Throughout the movie, Jack is a bumbling reminder that "travel" comes from the word "travail" (French for work). In the car-keying scene, his American horror is played against the Gallic glee of Marion's loony father, the car vandal. And when Jack goes to Burger King and orders a Whopper by mooing loudly, it's both funny and--if you've ever been tongue-tied in a foreign country--all too recognizable.

As for Jack and Marion, ultimately they're as different as the Upper West Side and Paris' West Bank. Jack is a caricature of a neurotic Jewish male, yet he somehow avoids coming across as merely a stereotype. Besides, stereotypes only go so far: Jack's Jewish DNA can't explain a fear of mold so severe that Jack recoils as if faced with George Bush himself.

In the end, Two Days in Paris avoids excessive stereotyping and ethnic shtick--the two major pitfalls of movies about interfaith couples--while poking fun at Republicans and the French. And it all happens in just two days! Imagine what a full week with these two might produce.