The first must-see film of the year.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

A follow-up to Julie Delpy's first directorial effort, "Two Days in Paris," that's quite a bit more entertaining, IMHO, than the original. The premise—JD and Chris Rock are Marion and Mingus, Downtown culture workers with two slightly troubled, adorable kids—doesn't quite fulfill its promise but fans of Richard Linklater's "Before" films might want to take a chance. The main storyline chugs along pretty nicely: the couple endures a brief visit from her elderly flowerchild father ("he says that showers deplete the immune system"), tactlesss sister and sister's doltish boyfriend. Parallel plots involving a gallery opening (she's some sort of conceptual art photog) and a colossal Lucy-style whopper she tells a neighbor to get out of a minor scrape are a little draggy, though a couple of these filler scenes have a modest payoff later on. Delpy plays pretty much the same talky, frazzled, excitable character she does in the "Before" films; Chris Rock seems a little colorless (as it were), as if he's trying too hard to escape from his standup persona (the scenes where he soliloquizes to a cardboard-cutout Obama didn't do much for me). Delpy's been accused of being a self-hating Frenchy, but I think the point is that people tend to behave as if the stuff they do in a foreign country doesn't really go on their permanent record—Sis swans around in a T-shirt that doesn't quite cover her butt, par example, Dad takes his keys to the lustrous flanks of a stretch Hummer (back home he only does that if they're parked on the sidewalk), boyfriend Manu commits every possible faux pas. The highpoint is a scene where Mingus, who writes for the Village Voice, is trying to score points with a dark-complected White House staffer (not played by Kal Penn) they run into in a café, and the sisters immediately start bickering while Manu babbles on about Harold and Kumar going to White Castle… Not a must-see at all but definitely watchable.PS—a reviewer down below insists that Marion's French connections don't act right b/c they're "gritty" Bretons, not Parisians. Au contraire! Both films make clear that Dad's a gallery owner, Sis a child psychologist and Manu some sort of writer; they're from Paris.

Near the end of this movie, Vincent Gallo turns up as himself, proclaims himself a polymath, and starts questioning the existence of the human soul. The fact that I couldn't tell if this scene was a hideous joke or some kind of emotional conclusion testifies to the maddening failure of 2 Days In New York to engage anyone except, presumably, Julie Delpy. Delpy writes and directs, and stars as Marion, a neurotic photographer whose monstrous family comes over from Paris to cause havoc. Her boyfriend, Mingus (Chris Rock), suffers their broad humour and rudeness with patience and dignity. Will Marion and Mingus survive this ordeal? More importantly, will we the audience?"Life is harder to handle than any dragon," Marion concludes, near the end. Hear-hear. Who needs big-budget CG blockbusters when you've real insight into the human condition at a fraction of the cost? And yet, ironically, 2 Days In New York is more shallow and crass (yet simultaneously safe and twee) than ninety percent of multiplex movies. Blandly directed, self-consciously "wacky", peopled by infantile characters who show no signs of behaving like recognisable adults, the film breaks down into a series of tonally erratic comedy setpieces and mildly zany episodes full of overlapping banter and pertaining to nothing but a vague sense of snarky middle-class discontent. This is what I imagine a Friends movie would look like if they attempted to recapture the magic now: ego mayhem, cheap 'n' chuckling sex jokes, and cringeworthy First World whining.

I think it's hilarious that some of the reviewers chastise the FRENCH Julie Delpy for portraying French people abroad in an unbelievable and unflattering light. Yeah of course you are more likely to be right! Part of the charm of the movie is showing that many cultures, when travelling, behave far more informally than they do at home. The situations here are supposed to be caricatures and not politically correct plastic people and they work well. And yes, the French talk about sex a lot - it's part of their charm - and they like to embarrass each other too. These guys are supposed to be from Brittany which isn't Parisienne sophistication but rural grit and it makes for a very funny movie that doesn't contain a Allen-esque message but is great entertainment pure and simple. Don't come to the movie expecting Chris Rock standup and zaniness (great casting for that reason alone) but to be humoured in a gentle way more reminiscent of slapstick than Woody Allen. Julie Delpy writes very well and maintains a good pace as director. All in all a job well done.

French-American actress Julie Delpy is the writer, director and star of 2 Days in New York, a sequel to her earlier project 2 Days in Paris (2007). Her character Marion has broken up with her former partner Jack and now lives in a New York apartment with her child and boyfriend Mingus (Chris Rock). Mingus is a radio announcer and journalist. He has a child from another relationship, who lives with both he and Marion. Their relationship is thrown into disarray when Marion's father (Albert Delpy, the director's real life father) and her sister Rose (Alexia Landeau) and her boyfriend Manu (Alex Nahon) come to stay with them. While having to work their daily lives around their relatives, Marion is also trying to organise a gallery of her artwork, which includes trying to sell her own soul, along with images of her past relationships that are on public display. Why is it unusual for a small indie film to attract a sequel? Some don't earn enough money at the box office to warrant another entry. Other indie films are tightly scripted in a way that completes the hero's journey satisfactorily, with no other means for continuation. 2 Days in Paris (2007) was a solid indie hit for Julie Delpy, earning just over 19 million dollars internationally on a modest budget. Now Delpy has opted to explore a new part of Marion's life: the strain of a relationship that has children involved. This sequel also tries to subvert the main joke and concept of the first movie: the French relatives are now the outsiders in America, instead of Marion's partner, but the cultural and language barriers are still thematically intact. It's not a particularly drastic or original shift in concept, but there are some major improvements. Delpy's script is a lot funnier and wittier than the first movie. Though the scenes are still episodic, there are more memorable, clever moments, like when Marion has to pretend that she has a terrible illness, with a visible limp, so that her neighbours won't file a noise complaint. Another positive for the film is the inclusion of Chris Rock, a much more likable and humorous presence than Adam Goldberg's grumpy character, who is now absent. Chris Rock has a very expressive face, which means that he effectively communicate a lot of straight-faced humour in silence. I like his comic timing too. He's well-cast. Until late in the narrative, the film also seems to flow much smoother. Paris had a lot of long, drawn-out sequences, whereas this film reminded me more of a TV sitcom, which fits neatly with its New York apartment setting. Those are the most improved aspects of Delpy's writing and direction. However, even at a meager ninety minutes, the film is still overlong and the pacing dips significantly. It's funny but lacks real dramatic high points to keep us fully engaged, a balance that the great slice of life filmmakers like Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants) never seem to omit. And by the end, many of Delpy's quirkier elements feel unsatisfying or overly ambiguous. The comments about her selling her soul because she doesn't believe in an afterlife teeter on being overly precious, as do the rushed philosophical ramblings about her mother and growing up. I would have liked more time spent carefully reflecting and unfolding these aspect of Marion's character to make this movie as deep as it is funny.