I was really hoping for more of the magic of Before Sunrise and After Sunset, but honestly the characters in Julie Delpy’s freshman directorial effort were so off putting in comparison that this film suffers a bit. Honestly I never saw what these two saw in each other, though they both give great performances, there characters were just too at odds. The situation might be more realistic, with Delpy playing a bit of an expat, but even with the cultural clashes going on, I never got see why these characters liked each other to begin with, so I never really believed it, because they seem so far apart. Decent enough, but I can’t really recommend it.

A couple, Marion (Julie Delpy) a French photography with a problem in her vision who lives in New York City and her American boyfriend Jack (Adam Goldberg who I saw in Mayfair last week) who is interior designer, are going to Paris after an awful European trip to visit her parents for the first time. Jack got sick in Italy, and has become obsessed with photography, photographing every minute of their trip, even though she is the photographer. They arrive at Marion’s house, and it is an apartment above that of her parents Anna (Marie Pillet actually Delpy’s mother) and Jeannot (Albert Delpy actually Delpy’s father) and her sister Rose (Aleksia Landeau), and chaos ensues.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Adam speaks no French, and things with the family get off to a rocky start, and it doesn’t help when he learns she has sent nude photos of him to her sister who showed them to her father and mother. And then it seems all of Marion’s ex’s show up one after another, and all still love her, which really blows Jack’s mind. And it doesn’t help that he finds an earlier version of the same photo of him naked, but with a different guy.

So Jack goes into full freakout mode, while Marion just does her thing.

Jack tries to enjoy Paris, seeing the sights, and going to see Jim Morrison’s grave (and later learning Marrion’s mother had a fling with him), but when a particularly bad ex shows up, Marrion gets ugly, and gets them thrown from the restaurant.

Their relationship never really gels, but never ends either.

••••

Knowing that Goldbery was her ex, I hope he wasn’t quite so nuerotic, because if so I just don’t get why they would ever be together to begin with.