2 DAYS IN NEW YORK - ODW Pick Of The Month → On Demand Weekly

2 DAYS IN NEW YORK - ODW Pick Of The MonthJuly 02, 2012

Magnolia Pictures

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: 2 DAYS IN NEW YORK (Magnolia), on demand July 6, 2012.

2 DAYS IN NEW YORK
By Amy Slotnick

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In Julie Delpy’s 2 DAYS IN NEW YORK her character Marion, who some may know from the film’s prequel, 2 DAYS IN PARIS, is now an expat living in NYC. Marion’s voiceover recounts how after her last relationship broke up, she started her life again with Mingus (played by Chris Rock), a writer and radio host, who adores her and her child. Their cozy and chaotic life is disrupted when her family arrives from Paris, visiting for a gallery exhibition in which her photos, as well as her soul, are up for sale.

Upon arriving in New York, Marion’s father, Jeannot (played by Delpy’s real dad, actor Albert Delpy) is held up in customs for trying to smuggle in French cheese and sausage underneath his clothes. Along with Dad, are Marion’s sister Rose and an unexpected guest, Manu (played by the film’s co-writer Alex Nahon). He is Marion’s ex and now Rose’s lover. Needless to say, neither Marion nor Mingus are pleased to see him there. At Marion’s apartment, when Jeannot sees he will be sleeping on the living room couch, he asks, “Where will I jerk off?” And so begins the chaos that fuels the film’s comedy.

Chris Rock / 2 DAYS IN NEW YORK (Magnolia)

A Woody Allen-esque style runs through the story, with this family of characters talking over one another, being critical, anxious, competitive, defensive and loving, all at the same time. Through the film the language barrier between Jeannot, who only speaks French, and Mingus, who doesn’t seem to know any, creates many comic beats. Manu is scoring and smoking pot, Rose is hitting on every man who comes within her view, and Mingus is holing up in his study to escape their madness, where he talks aloud to a cardboard standee of Barack Obama.

When Marion learns from a neighbor that Manu and Rose were smoking pot in the apartment building’s elevator and the neighbor plans to have her evicted for it, Marion bursts out with the lie that she has a brain tumor and doesn’t have much more time to live there anyway.

Marion’s very funny, and somewhat familiar, family-induced mania, continues to escalate at her gallery opening. Her photos, which she says are about a relationship fading over time, don’t attract any buyers. That is until the neighbor shows up and word spreads that Marion is dying, so her photos should be worth much more in a short amount of time.

As the gallery show spirals further out of control, an anonymous bidder, purchases a “conceptual piece,” Marion’s soul. Given all her anxiety, Marion can’t bear to have her soul lost at this moment and, in a panic, runs away from the show and her family. She hunts down the anonymous buyer, who turns out to be the “actor, poet and legend,” Vincent Gallo.

She comes home hours later, defeated, having been unable to buy back her soul from Gallo. On their last day together, when everyone’s patience is frayed, Marion and family visit Central Park, and she comes close to having a fatal accident while trying to free a pigeon from the Belvedere Castle roof. She and the pigeon are saved and the pigeon flies over the city, shitting on Vincent Gallo and others we have encountered through the story.

Marion’s voiceover tells us that in a fairy tale, “after the happy ending, life begins.” The film began with the happy ending, when Marion met Mingus. And then life began and difficulties, bickering and messiness mixed together with love and beauty.

If you are a fan of Woody Allen films, or even Seinfeld, in which small but relatable moments become absurd, frenzied and laugh-out-loud funny, you should check out Julie Delpy’s 2 DAYS IN NEW YORK.

- Amy Slotnick

Amy
Amy Slotnick is a contributor to On Demand Weekly. She works as an independent producer and freelance consultant to film financing start-ups. Previously she was a Senior VP of Production at Miramax Films.