Studio: 20th Century Fox Genre: Romantic •
Comedy Street Date: February 5, 2008 Director: Julie Delpy Number of Discs: 1 MPAA Rating: R Cast: Albert Delpy, Julie Delpy, Adam Goldberg, Adan Jodorowsky, Chick Ortega Running Time: 100 minutes Format: DVD Specs: Video: Widescreen 1.85:1 Color
Audio: ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English, Spanish Special Features: Extended scenes, Interview with director and star Julie Delpy. Version: Standard Store Exclusives: Every DVD comes with a coupon for some Freedom Fries. (Not really) Review: Let me put this out there right off the bat; 2 Days in Paris is NOT a date movie. The poster and DVD cover makes it look like one but it's about as much of a date flick as The Last Kiss was. Oh sure you could take it as an object lesson in dating and warning of what not to do, but that still does quantify it as a date movie.
Here’s the set up: A couple from America (though she is French) take a vacation in Europe, along the way they get on each others nerves, her lies and sexual past get exposed and the meltdown begins.
Here's the rub; this is a good relationship gone horribly wrong because of insecurities, language barriers, paranoia, and deceit. Most of you reading this can probably relate in some why I'm sure. Who hasn't heard that whole "It's not you it's me" line? Or better yet that old con of "I'm breaking up with you because it's what you really want" bullshit, or better even still "I wasn't lying I was protecting you"? Fact of the matter is most people are cowards when it comes to facing the tough parts of a relationship, they can't fight for what they want because they are too scared to lose. Two words of advice: 1) It's better to risk it all for the right person than risk nothing on all the wrong ones. 2) Pat Benatar was right "Love is a battlefield". And thus ends the part of this review where I vent about relationships in relation to this film.
As Julie Delpy's first full length directorial debut she handles things better then I'd have expected. Most of the film feels very natural and relaxed. I have to wonder about the choice of Adam Goldberg in this though, don't get me wrong Adam is fun guy to watch but I have a hard timing buying into any spark between these two ever existing. Considering the plot it doesn't really detract from things but might over state a point that should have been more subtle.
All in all a decent flick worth a look just be careful who you watch it with...you might end up single in the morning.
Let me leave you with a quote from the movie that sums things up pretty well:
“It always fascinated me how people go from loving you madly to nothing at all, nothing. It hurts so much. When I feel someone is going to leave me, I have a tendency to break up first before I get to hear the whole thing. Here it is. One more, one less. Another wasted love story. I really love this one. When I think that it’s over, that I'll never see him again like this... well yes, I'll bump into him, we'll meet our new boyfriend and girlfriend, act as if we had never been together, then we'll slowly think of each other less and less until we forget each other completely. Almost. Always the same for me. Break up, break down. Drunk up, fool around. Meet one guy, then another, fuck around. Forget the one and only. Then after a few months of total emptiness start again to look for true love, desperately look everywhere and after two years of loneliness meet a new love and swear it is the one, until that one is gone as well. There's a moment in life where you can't recover any more from another break-up. And even if this person bugs you sixty percent of the time, well you still can’t live without him. And even if he wakes you up every day by sneezing right in your face, well you love his sneezes more than anyone else's kisses.” Buy It Now: Rating: