"It's so ugly when you speak French!" (Marion / Julie Delpy)2 Days in Paris is a funny and surprising film written, directed, edited, and starred by the talented Julie Delpy. It has a taste of Woody Allen and a taste of European films.The film was nominated for a César award for Best Original Screenplay (Meilleur scénario original). The script is brilliant indeed.Julie's real parents play Marion's parents. The father is hilarious.The best: the lack of communication between different cultures, Albert Delpy's character and his passion for destroying cars that are bad parked (it would be so great to be able to do that!), the American Republican losers, Jack's paranoia for Marion's man-eater complex, the fairy, the music, and the scene where Marion shouts at the racist taxi driver and criticizes France.The worst: that the film is so short. I wish it would have lasted an hour longer.

2 DAYS IN Paris isn't going to be the kind of film to win any Oscars; its subject-matter is a familiar one (the American floundering in a foreign culture), and the conclusion equally predictable. Nonetheless Julie Delpy's film does have its incidental pleasures, notably two winning central performances from Delpy herself as Marion and Adam Goldberg (as Jack). Although different as chalk from cheese, they nonetheless try to sustain their love-affair in the face of almost insuperable obstacles - Marion's overbearing, non-English-speaking parents, a bohemian ex-boyfriend of Marion (Daniel Bruhl), plus a host of other impediments - imagined or otherwise - that befall Jack's stay in Paris. The film takes some predictable potshots at Americans abroad; their monolingualism, their expectations that everyone should think like them, irrespective of cultural differences; and their obsession with private as opposed to public issues. On the other hand the French are not immune from criticism either; Lukas (Bruhl) is portrayed as a libertine paying scant regard for such things as reliability or privacy. The film's conclusion is predictable enough, with the lovers vowing to separate yet unable to do so, but it has been an enjoyable trip along the way.

It's a pretty small sub-genre of films, in which Julie Delpy plays an irritating European, wandering round a European city in the company of an even more annoying American. But Delpy, who starred in Richard Linklater's 'Before Sunrise' and its sequel, has now made a film of her own in a similar mould. Fortunately, it's not as self-regarding as Linklater's films, but it isn't funny enough to really work as a comedy, and if it's characters are a little less unlikeable, they're still not really interesting, being too self-consciously eccentric. Delpy tries to paint a picture of the reality of a mature relationship; but it doesn't really work when the protagonists have the emotional development of teenagers. I sincerely hope the genre goes no further than here.

Director Richard Linklater shared writing credits on "Before Sunset" and "Before Sunrise" with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, the actors who played the couple at the heart of his two romantic masterpieces.Flash forward several years and we have Julie Delpy starring in, writing, directing and scoring "Two Days In Paris", an unofficial sequel to Linklater's films.Utilizing Linklater's "walk and talk" technique, the film replicates Linklater's story about a European girl and an American guy sharing intimate moments whilst on a holiday in Europe. She's a Parisian and he's a New Yorker, and as they spend a weekend in her home town we eavesdrop on their conversations, listen to their anxieties and chuckle at some moments of light culture clash comedy.Linklater's duology primarily appealed to young males, but Delpy's, despite utilising a similar style and structure, is a distinctly female thing (on IMDb, females also rank this film higher than males). Her character, with black-rimmed geek glasses and a personality akin to a semi-neurotic or hypochondriac, is your artist's typical self-depreciating view of him/herself. In contrast, her love interest is a gorgeous but sensitive stud, who gets his penis out on screen for the audience. He is squarely the tale's object of affection, whom Delpy punishes herself for not deserving.And so eventually our couple begin to grow apart. Delpy throws in much castration symbolism (a photo in which soaring balloons are mirrored to flaccid genitals being the most obvious one) and subplots about performance anxiety, but it is not her partner who cannot perform, but she who desires to make him anxious. Scarred by previous relationships she retreats from commitment and sabotages her chance for love.Beyond the romance, the film delights in poking fun at both Americans and French. The various tourists and characters whom our couple meet whilst on their holiday convey the impression that all Americans are ignorant and repressed whilst all French are racist snobs. But the private behaviour of our couple cast a complex light on these issues. He may be repressed, but he's trustworthy and longs for commitment. She may be your typical liberated, bourgeois artist, but her inhibitions stem from deep scars.The film is too clumsy and too reliant on gross out humour to compete with Linklater's sensitive romances (and the films of Eric Rohmer, whom Linklater seems influenced by), and its final act doesn't resonate as well as it should, but "2 Days In Paris" is nevertheless an excellent film, featuring two well written characters who speak with refreshing frankness.8/10 – Worth one viewing. Makes a good companion piece to the romances of Linklater, Cassavetes, Rohmer and countless equally good indie romances like "A Little Stiff", "In The City of Sylvia", "All The Real Girls", "In Search of a Midnight Kiss", "Say Anything", "Keith" etc.