2 Days in Paris (1/10)
by Tony Medley
Anyone who
doesn’t think that producer-writer-director-star Julie Delpy is trying
to foist selfish lower middle class morals on an unsuspecting public
after seeing Before Sunset (2004), in which she made it romantic
rather than reprehensible for a man to abandon his wife and young
4-year-old son to move in with her in Paris, should reflect on her
following statement about how she obtained investors for this film:
“There were 2
lines that convinced the financiers to jump in:
I would say that a blowjob is a big
deal; after all it is a blowjob that brought down America’s last chance
at a healthy democracy.
and
Is this a kid’s size condom? Do they
make condoms for kids?”
If you realize
that this is the intellectual level behind the making of these films,
you might not be disappointed if you actually decide to spend money to
sit through this monotonous 96-minute film.
The bare bones
story involves Marion (Delpy) and her lover, Jack (Adam Goldberg),
embarking on a European trip to try to salvage their romance. According
to a friend of mine who has known Goldberg for almost his entire life,
this is apparently a roman à clef about a real relationship that
once existed between Delpy and Goldberg. To add to the verisimilitude,
Delpy cast her real parents as Marion's parents.
When one of
her former lovers appears, Adam asks if they had a relationship. “I gave
him a blowjob,” Marion replies. If this is something that actually
happened between Delpy and Goldberg, it’s no wonder they are no longer
an item. That’s not the image one wants to pop into one’s head when
kissing the love of his life.
Talented
people might be able to pull off making a film without admirable
protagonists, like, for instance, Mike Nichols, Edward Albee, and Ernest
Lehman, who made an entire film, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(1966) without one person the audience could like and root for. But
Julie isn’t Mike or Edward or Ernest…yet, anyway. Her character isn’t
particularly likeable and Adam is a grossly tattooed, relatively
unattractive, selfish oaf.
Delpy makes it
even worse with her political digs. There are a couple of anti-Bush
comments in the film. That’s another questionable idea; put something in
your film that is sure to offend one-quarter to one-half of its
audience. Epitomizing the superficiality of the knee-jerk thought
processes of these entertainment people, here’s a story about Delpy as
reported by the LBN Alert:
Die-hard environmentalist Julie Delpy
was on a press tour in Chicago promoting "2 Days in Paris" when she
jumped up during breakfast with a Chicago Tribune reporter. The French
actress "saw a large truck idling in front of the restaurant with its
engine running," said a witness. When she couldn't find the driver,
Delpy climbed into the cab and turned off the engine. The driver
eventually returned to explain the engine "had to be on because the
truck was carrying fresh meat and poultry.”
So, let’s see,
this has two unlikable protagonists, a low moral tone, not much humor,
no chemistry between the stars, and a political POV. Not my cup of tea,
but, hey, maybe it’s right up your alley.
June 26, 2007
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