DVD Reviews

2 Days In Paris

• Rating:
• Director: Julie Delpy
• Starring: Adam Goldberg
• Details: France / Germany / 96mins (15).

Every guy on the planet will empathise with Adam Goldberg in 2 Days In Paris. We've all been there. We've all, at some stage in our lives, been reduced to a blubbering mess of jealousy and insecurity and have badly embarrassed ourselves with our reaction tocovering up of those feelings. 2 Days In Paris, the flipside to Paris, Je T'aime, strips man to the bone but still allows his voice be heard. Jack (Goldberg) is on a short holiday with girlfriend Marion (Delpy) and although meeting her eccentric and sexually permissive parents (Delpy's real-life parents) for the first time is bad enough, the couple keep bumping into Marion's ex-boyfriends with whom she's still 'friendly'. Jack tries to keep a lid on his insecurity for as long as possible but is forced to confront them and Marion head on. Delpy, who wrote the script and took the free-flowing dialogue from her Before Sunrise screenplay with her, understands men. She knows their ins-and-outs and what makes them tick, and all are on screen in her dialogue-heavy second outing. She can be accused of being a little simplistic in her depiction at times (just trying to retain an air of mystery, here), but on the whole she's right and, more importantly, funny. Paris-born Delpy isn't afraid of sending up her native city, either. The French come across as rude ("It's a cliche but it's true"), smarmy, arty types and the taxi drivers are either wife-beaters, homophobes, sexist or racist. Delpy also allows her co-star to steal the limelight in every scene he's in, and Goldberg rises to the challenge - he's fantastic and delivers a performance that rings of a Woody Allen in a really, really bad mood. He's funny, childish, sympathetic, overly negative and annoyingly sarcastic but is still a decent guy. Sound like anyone you know?

Review by Gavin Burke