Dreaming of France -- 2 Days in Paris

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
As obsessed as I am with France, how is it possible that I sometimes miss movies set in France? I happened upon 2 Days in Paris with Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg. The film came out in 2007. Most of it is in English but it includes subtitles for the portions in French.
When the film began with a couple on a night train from Venice, I stopped and wondered if this was another Julie Delpy/Ethan Hawke movie like Before Sunrise and Before Sunset where a French woman connects with an American man. But Adam Goldberg plays a very different character than Ethan Hawke. Delpy directed this one and really focused on some hilarious stereotypes of the French.
The couple, Marion and Jack, are at the end of a vacation in Venice and plan to spend two days at her apartment in Paris before they return to New York. Jack is a Woody Allen-type character, paranoid about dirt and whining about a lot.
Marion's apartment is upstairs from her parents' apartment. The parents have been cat-sitting for Marion's chunky cat Jean-Luc. Marion fights with her mother who has fed the cat foie gras while she watched him.
The Parisian family greets Jack with a luncheon where rabbit is served and the father makes a show of eating the head. Jack, of course, is appalled because he had a pet bunny as a kid. The parents and Marion speak French quite heatedly in front of Jack, talking about him with him not even realizing it. Subtitles let the viewer in on the joke. I think that made me laugh because I've been in that situation before.
Marion runs into old flames who want to win her back and flirt outrageously, saying blunt, sexual things that Americans would never say, again, in front of the boyfriend since he doesn't speak French.
Jack is appalled by an overtly sexual art exhibit at Marion's father's art gallery and feels out of place at a French party, while Marion is in her element.
Another funny moment is when Jack realizes that Marion's mother has ironed his jeans, leaving neat seams down the front. I always wonder about the French and ironing. Almost every French person I know has a woman who comes in to iron for the family. I figure that's because they don't dry clothes in the dryer so things feel rough unless they're ironed. (Please tell me if you think my theory is wrong.)
Paris itself didn't star as much in the film as it did in Midnight in Paris, but simply viewing streets, flower markets, and metro stops was enough to make me yearn for France again.
This is definitely a movie I enjoyed and I'd recommend it.
Thanks for playing along. I hope you'll come back on Wednesday and Thursday when I review Seduction by MJ Rose and interview her too. Plus, there's a giveaway.
Also, my book The Summer of France is being reviewed on several blogs and you can check the schedule on the top right of my blog under France Book Tours.