What’s Love Got to Do with It?

Fall is so going from 0 to 60 in three point five, have you noticed?

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about Feast of Love and The Kingdom, but today I want to tell you about a smaller film you may have missed at the movie theater: Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris.

It follows a couple who has been together for two years, French photographer Marion (Delpy) and American interior designer Jack (Adam Goldberg).

They live in New York, but have been on holiday through Europe in an attempt to relight the fire of romance in their relationship. After a week in Venice, which really didn't go as planned, Marion and Jack arrive in Paris for the last two days of their trip.

Soon, though, the combination of Marion's sweetly offbeat and overbearing non-English speaking parents and the inappropriately still-flirtatious nature of her relationships with her ex-boyfriends, and Jack's continuing photography obsession and neurotic American tourist malaise, don't make for a good time.

2 Days in Paris, with its Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?-inspired repartee, explores the peaks and valleys of Marion and Jack’s relationship.

Do they want the same things? Do they respect each other? And, more importantly, is it even love what they feel for each other?

These are the questions that arise while they are in the City of Lights – and the answers to which they arrive will be most illuminating.

In the necessarily confronting end, Marion and Jack will have to make a decision, through honest and mature conversation. It is uncharacteristic of the couple, and like the film, a real breakthrough.

My Rating ***

Photo: Samuel Goldwyn Films.