2 DAYS IN PARIS

a film review by Malik Isasis























Approximately ten years ago my partner at the time received a job offer from a certain Ivory league university in Boston. We were both finishing up school at the University of Washington in Seattle.

We flew out to Boston together for the interview. We rehearsed her interview in the hotel room. She was so nervous her nose began to bleed. Then her body began to shake before she went into a full-fledge panic attack. It took a long time to talk her off the emotional ledge. Eventually she was stable enough to get down to the interview.

Two hours later she came back euphoric stating that they offered her the job on the spot. Little did we know that the transition would unravel our relationship.

She had 90 days to finish her dissertation, graduate and drive out to Boston. Needless to say, this put an incredible amount of stress on the relationship and I gave her some space to finish her dissertation, and by the time she’d finished there was a noticeable distance. We debated whether or no we should move to Boston together.

“I don't know how I feel about us.” She told me.
“Yeah.” I agreed.

Even with doubts and the voices in our heads telling us that we were right, we still decided to pack up the SUV and drive 3,000 from Seattle to Boston.

As we hit I-90 West, she received a phone call. I could hear the voice, it was male, but I could not hear the content. During the conversation, I became just a pronoun.

“I’m with my friend. We’re driving out now.” When one becomes a pronoun, it’s clearly over.

Needless to say, during the drive to Boston, I began wondering whether or not she was faithful.

We fought.

We made up.

I discovered a box a condoms we never opened, but one was used. My imagination spiraled out of control.

"Did you cheat on me?" I asked.
"No." She said.

We did not speak through the state of Wyoming, and in the hotels, we slept in separate beds. It was a nightmare. I thought that if we made it to Boston alive, I would never speak to this woman again.

By the time we made it to Boston, it was clear that the relationship had passed away, long before we acknowledged it. On the 3,000-mile road trip, there was a lot of damage.

Ten years have past and we were able to move past the damage to become the best friends. Somehow, we survived ourselves to become better friends. It was difficult but we became stronger, even taking a trip to Europe.

2 Days in Paris

That was the emotional baggage that was unpacked as I watched Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris where French photographer Marion (Julie Delpy) and her American Interior Designer partner of two years Jack (Adam Goldberg) have a two day lay over in Paris after a romantic getaway in Venice.

The film opens with Marion and Jack on one of those speed trains in Europe, asleep. It is clear from the moment we see them asleep that the Venice trip revealed something about who they were as a couple but they weren’t ready to address it, rather they wanted to forget them in Paris. However, the moment they step off the train and into Paris, Paris spares them no such sympathy.

Marion and Jack run into many of Marion’s former paramours. Marion enjoys the flirtation as Jack’s insecurities grow and he begins to imagine things that may or may not have happened. It didn’t help his paranoia when she is caught in a lie.

In one scene, Marion admits nonchalantly that she gave one guy a blowjob. Jack states that it was a blowjob that almost brought down the free world. Marion tells Jack to get some perspective that on a scale of morality, there’s war and poverty, then there’s blowjobs, which don’t configure at all in the scheme of things.

The crack the couple was hoping to conceal only accentuated their dysfunction, nearly destroying their relationship. 2 Days in Paris is a romantic comedy, however, it follows emotional logic. It doesn’t set up false obstacles for the protagonists to overcome. There are no bad or good people, just people trying to make sense of their relationship. Both Marion and Jack are very flawed and probably shouldn’t be together, but they are, and are trying to make it work.

Delpy is a bright actress and talented filmmaker. It is hard to believe that this is her directorial debut. She co-wrote Before Sunrise with Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke in 1994 and the sequel to Before Sunset with Linklater and Hawke in 2004.

Delpy has been smart over the years choosing her work in Europe and the United States (she can be forgiven for the mess An American Werewolf in Paris)

Delpy wrote, directed, and starred in the film; if that wasn’t enough, she also scored the music in the film. Great comedians make you laugh because they tell stories in a way that tap into universal experiences; Delpy is able to use the universal feelings of jealousy, confusion, and anger to make us connect to her characters and follow them to their logical conclusion.


Grade: A

PIMP THIS |