Sequels to blockbusters are crushingly commonplace, yet sequels to indie films are rare. When they come along, they usually exist for the right reason—not because the studio wants another gigantic payday but because the writer and/or director has more to say about the characters. Before Sunrise (1995) introduced Ethan Hawke as an American tourist in Vienna and Julie Delpy as the Frenchwoman he meets, falls for, and reluctantly leaves; when that movie’s writer-director, Richard Linklater, revived the characters in Before Sunset (2004), he wanted to explore how the would-be lovers had reckoned with their fateful separation. Now Delpy has created a similar set of bookends with her screwball comedies 2 Days in Paris (2007) and 2 Days in New York (which opens Friday at Landmark’s Century Centre). Both movies generate laughs from the yawning cultural divide between France and the U.S., but taken as a pair they also show how even the closest of lovers, like people from different lands, never really understand each other.
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If you feel culturally inferior to the French, take comfort in the fact that 2 Days in Paris and 2 Days in New York both follow the comic template of the wacky, tacky Meet the Parents franchise. 2 Days in Paris opens with Marion (Delpy) explaining in voice-over narration that she grew up in Paris but moved to New York to pursue a photography career; now she and her neurotic American boyfriend, Jack (Adam Goldberg), have arrived in the City of Light to visit her mother and father (Marie Pillet and Albert Delpy, the director’s real-life parents). The only difference is that she’s reversed the social polarity—now the intimidating father figure is a radical instead of a puritan. When Jack, who speaks no French, first dines with Jeannot, Marion’s father, who speaks no English, the old man cooks rabbit and grosses out Jack by helping himself to the head. Their conversation consists of Jeannot quizzing Jack with the names of writers—Kerouac, Faulkner, Henry Miller, Arthur Rimbaud—and tries to catch him up by including Auguste Renoir.
Goldberg’s neurotic shtick was good for one movie, but for 2 Days in New York, Delpy has wisely replaced him with Chris Rock as Marion’s new man, Mingus. Swallowed up by the family’s world, the boyfriend gets all the best lines and reaction shots; he’s the comic engine of the movie, and the second one benefits from the oil change. Delpy opens with a puppet show dramatizing her breakup with Jack, their shared custody of their little boy, Lulu, and her happy new relationship with Mingus, a Village Voice writer and a radio broadcaster, and Willow, his little daughter from a previous marriage. This time Marion’s father, bereaved by the death of his wife (Marie Pillet passed away in 2009), arrives for a visit to New York City, accompanied by Rose and her latest boyfriend—the unctuous Manu. Mingus suddenly finds himself with an apartment full of bickering, libidinous, and strong-smelling Parisians (in fact Jeannot and Manu have been detained at the airport and divested of 18 smuggled cheeses and sausages).
Directed by Julie Delpy
