Ray Pride

Part of the great, scary thrill of writer-director-editor-composer-star Julie Delpy's accomplishment with "2 Days in Paris" is how it would be less than disturbing if either of her thirtysomething, cross-cultural couple were to turn to the other and murder them suddenly, so vivid, vital, draining, exhilarating is their sustained comic contumely across a long weekend two years into a relationship.

While some elements of the comedy are reminiscent of the Oscar-nominated script for "Before Sunset" that she wrote with Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke, Delpy's more exuberant, and less comforting to her characters. (She also says she was working on this near-break-up, crack-up script before "Before.")

Delpy plays Marion, a French woman who hides behind horn-rims, a congenital, pathological flirt and photographer who, during the trip, cedes the picture-taking to Jack, a bearded Adam Goldberg (and former Delpy beau) who's a decorator back home in New York and a hypochondriac wherever he lands. It's a richly detailed piece of work that is at first fearful: this is a comedy of terrors, as relationships past the age of 30 go. But quickly, you realize that this is like "Annie Hall," if it were told from Annie Hall's perspective, with a more feminine style of bicker and banter. I tell Delpy this while interviewing her at an event at the Apple store, admitting I didn't mean to reduce her own accomplishment by making comparisons, and she grins, "Oh no! I like that! That would be great if that's what I've done!"

They're a pair of pained neurotics: in his very first scene, Jack's giving cruelly erroneous directions to "Da Vinci Code"-clutching American tourists wearing Bush-Cheney '04 T-shirts (custom-designed to avoid violating RNC trademarks). He's a fish out of water, tortured and torturing all at once. "I enjoy torturing Jack," she tells me, flashing her smile and strangely timeless eyes.

"Annie Hall," that is, with more penis and blowjob jokes. While there are many very contemporary bits of political and sociological detail, Marion's constantly teasing Jack about his fixation that the condoms in Europe are too small. "Jack's convinced his penis is larger than Italian and French men and I give him grief for that." How would Delpy characterize her comedy style? "A little crude. I am crude! The things… The way I talk about things, it goes back to my parents." Delpy's own parents, veteran stage actors, play Marion's parents. Dad's a randy one, and the only person with a racier mouth in the movie is Marion. Mom also has a few little confessions that appall Jack, especially after he's discovered that Marion's shared a photograph with her sister and parents where he's wearing only a few strings and helium balloons on his penis. "She loves Jack. She just likes to tease him."

"I wanted to make a comedy about a couple breaking up. I know how I've felt, it's the worst time, you hate yourself, and it's painful, so it's funny, but I also needed to make a first film, and of everything I wrote, it's the first thing that anyone would give me money for." A woman directing a romantic comedy: a stereotype, but Delpy's hit the ground running with her first picture. While there's a hint of Godard's "Breathless," among dozens of other pictures in her post-Nouvelle Vague collage (which ends with a song written by Delpy and the post-bossa nova band Nouvelle Vague), she says one movie inspired "2 Days in Paris" more than any other: "Raging Bull." Marion as Jake LaMotta? "She has no fear. And I love 'Jaws.' The French men in this film are sharks." Delpy also concedes she's just as verbal as Marion, and an hour and a half listening to her reinforces that, yet the movie also belongs to Goldberg, who's a complete lovable teddy bear, if jackanapes, throughout.

Since she’d gone to NYU and lived for a long time in Los Angeles (while keeping an apartment in Paris), I had to wonder if Delpy considers "2 Days in Paris," in its own strange way, to be an American movie. "Oh, it's all-American, and it's all-French. It's all me."

Most startling is when she runs down a list of a "few" of her favorite directors she's worked with: Volker Schlondorff, Roger Avary, Richard Linklater, Jean-Luc Godard, Lasse Hallstrom, Krysztof Kieslowski… But mostly? She wants to direct. She's written scripts for years, and the rumored big-budget science fiction tale is far down the list. One of the next up is a "Dr. Strangelove"-type comedy: "World Wars And Other Fun Stuff To Watch on The Evening News." Delpy leans forward, smiles, says "It's hilarious!" and I believe her.

Now where's the money?

"2 Days in Paris" opens Friday.

(2007-08-21)

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