Julie Delpy's directorial debut uses improvisation. Photo / Supplied.
Herald rating: * * * *
The feature debut as writer-director for French star Delpy is reminiscent of mid-career Woody Allen, though it never feels derivative. Delpy herself plays Marion, an expatriate Parisienne who spends two days in her home town with her Jewish-American boyfriend Jack (Goldberg)
on the way home from a holiday in Venice.
Any expectations raised by the giddily romantic title are quickly dispelled. The fractious state of the couple's relationship is not helped by the fact that Marion has an apartment upstairs from her parents' and keeps bumping into old flames.
"It wasn't a big deal," she repeatedly tells Jack. He's not convinced.
The slightly improvisatory style of the dialogue allows the actors to riff their way though a film that often (and intentionally) feels like one of those home movies that reveal more than they should. Jack is a neurotic hypochondriac who is paranoid about terrorist attack but you can't help loving him, particularly when he points a group of Americans the wrong way to the Louvre because they are wearing Bush/Cheney T-shirts.
Marion's parents (played by Delpy's real-life parents Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet) provide plenty of incidental pleasures. Mum's romantic past contains a bigger surprise than Marion's and Dad has a novel way of dealing with cars that park on the footpath.
In the end it's a comedy of culture clash (there's a great scene involving confusion between Rimbaud and Rambo), which is, finally, very wise about love. It is also, like Paris - and Venice for that matter - deeply romantic without being sentimental.
Cast: Julie Delpy, Adam Goldberg
Director: Julie Delpy
Running time: 96 mins
Rating: M (offensive language, sexual scenes)
Screening: Lido, Rialto
Verdict: Debut as director for a star actress is a wise and witty comic rumination on love.
