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2 Days in New York
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Magnolia Pictures Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (19th February 2013). |
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The Film
 In 2007, actress turned writer/director Julie Delpy—whose work with acclaimed filmmakers Krzysztof Kieślowski, Jean-Luc Godard, and Richard Linklater has won her many accolades—made a comedy called “2 Days in Paris”. The film earned Delpy a best original screenplay nomination at the Cesar Awards (basically, the French equivalent of Hollywood’s Oscar). It told a familiar tale of a woman, named Marion (Julie Delpy), and her boyfriend, Jack (Adam Greenberg), attempting to revive their relationship while on holiday. Marion, a Frenchwoman by birth who long ago relocated to the United States, and Jack, a native New Yorker, rekindle their romance in France, where her immediate family still lives. Jack meets Marion’s mother, father and sister for the first time while there. Over the course of the film, various culture clashes between Jack and Marion’s improbably insane French family, and an influx of Marion’s old boyfriends, make things much more difficult than really need be. “2 Days in Paris” was a sort of pseudo-autobiography. Although heavily fictionalized, Delpy based much of the film on her relationship with Greenberg (whom she dated in the 90's) and her frantic, and very French, family, going so far as to cast her own father Albert Delpy as Marion’s eccentric father Jeannot, a jokester who speaks not a word of English and refuses to learn. Delpy is up to more of the same in “2 Days in New York”, a sort-of-sequel to “2 Days in Paris”, although knowledge of the first film isn’t really required, because so much has changed for Marion (and Delpy) in the five years following the first film. In the time since we last saw them, Marion and Jack (who is referenced in dialogue, but doesn’t appear on screen) have split, although they had a kid together. They share custody of their young son, Lulu (Owen Shipman). Marion has found a new love in Mingus (Chris Rock), a writer and host of a popular public radio show in NYC. Mingus also has a kid, a daughter named Willow (Talen Ruth Riley), from one of his two previous failed marriages. Perhaps because of their past relationships, Marion and Mingus are not technically married, but have been together for a few years in relative domestic bliss, quite content with the life they’ve made for themselves. But, one day in October, two days before Halloween, some French people invade their happy little home. Marion is a photographer. She has a show coming up and her family—her recently widowed father Jeannot, and her sister Rose (Alexia Landeau), and Rose’s new beau Manu (Alexandre Nahon)—come to town for a few days in support to see her work. And, predictably, everything goes to hell. Suddenly, Mingus is a stranger in strange land; only that strange land is his own home. Spurred on by a long simmering sibling rivalry, the mild-mannered man sees a side of the usually sweet Marion he’s never seen before. Hardly fluent in French, he has no idea how to talk to Jeannot, who still hasn’t bothered to master the English language. This proves problematic when Marion dumps “will-you-spend-the-day-with-my-Dad” duty on him. Rose—a delightfully psychotic paradox, both a nymphomaniac and a child psychologist—is a mystery. And Manu is an impressively aggressive personality, outspoken and outrageous and very, very French. Over the course of two days, many secrets come to light. Mingus learns Marion and Manu once had a relationship. Marion has a pregnancy scare, pretends to have cancer, and finds herself facing eviction when her sister and ex are caught smoking pot in the elevator. And her big showcase—at which she’s planned with her publicist to literally sell her soul, along with her photographs, for a sum of $10,000—becomes a true horror story on Halloween. As she did with the first “2 Days…” and several of her other works, Delpy once again explores the dynamics of family, and uses the culture clash as the foundation for most of the comedy at play in the picture. As she was with “…Paris”, the writer/director/actress is less interested in plot—“…New York” basically doesn’t have one—and is much more concerned with the characters she’s created, and seeing how they interact in the situations setup in the vacuum of a tight domestic space. For the first hour, the film rarely lets up. The first half is an endless onslaught of absurdity and insanity. The characters mostly stay in Marion and Mingus’ loft, arguing, reminiscing, reconciling, and arguing again. It’s a whirlwind of wicked chaos. And all the while, Mingus, clueless to what the frantic French people are screaming about, is oh-so-confused. The film is, at times, especially in the first half, completely hilarious. I haven’t laughed as hard as I did at some of the scenes in a long time. The film is exceptionally well acted, with Delpy capably headlining a cast of crazy characters. Her father, Albert, is a delight—so strange, so wonderfully weird. But it’s Chris Rock, playing entirely against type—not at all channeling his standup persona, which, in the supplements, he admits is all an act (Rock says he’s more like Mingus when not on stage, or on screen)—who steals the show. He’s just so clearly lost amongst the sea of scary screaming sisters and the sweet, strange, Frenchman that is supposedly the closest thing he has to a father-in-law. Rock and Albert Delpy’s scenes—which, due to their real-life language barrier, rely heavily on pantomime and physicality, and some very broken, near nonsensical, English and French—are easily some of the funniest bits of pure comedy I’ve seen in a good long while. The pace is a bit of a problem, in that the first half is so rapid and ridiculous it passes too quickly, while the second half—which is heavy on predictable plot elements that will bring the meandering movie to something resembling a logical close—is slogged down by a dense and less humorous nature. Sure, Delpy throws in as much absurd and amusing nonsense as she can in the second half to stave off the formulaic inevitability, culminating in cameo by Vincent Gallo as himself, but if I’m honest, “2 Days in New York” never quite lives up to the utter hilarity, or the headier ideas, that come pouring out in the first hour. It’s still a very funny movie, and well worth seeing, but its decidedly not a great one, interesting and well acted and all.
Video
“2 Days in New York” is presented on Blu-ray in 1080p 24/fps with an AVC MPEG-4 encoded high definition transfer. The film is framed in its original theatrical exhibition ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen. Thin letterboxing will appear on the top and bottom of the frame when played back on a display with no overscan. For the most part, this is a strong transfer. Shot digitally—primarily with the increasingly popular Arri Alexa—“2 Days…” looks excellent in high definition for most of its runtime. The image offers crisp detail, lifelike color and realistic skin tones, natural contrast, with deep blacks and clean and stable whites, and no evidence of obvious errors, like compression artifacts, or manipulation, such as edge enhancement. However, there is a troubling sequence that occurs towards the end of the film, when Marie is walking on the streets of NYC during the Halloween parade, which looks absolutely awful. The image is aggressively noisy, with considerably less definition, a weak black level and some serious aliasing. The footage looks like it was shot on something other than the Alexa—a consumer-grade DSLR or camcorder, or perhaps even a phone—and the drop off in quality is more than a little jarring. Thankfully, the issues are limited to this street sequence. The rest of the film looks very good.
Audio
The specs box on the rear of the packaging lists the audio as English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, but that’s not entirely accurate. “2 Days…” has a near equal amount of screen time in French and English, with character freely moving between the two languages in conversation. There might actually be more French spoken in the film. English subtitles default for the French dialogue, although they can be turned off in the menu. The overall mix isn’t any different than your standard rom-com or dialogue-fueled drama, with clear intelligible dialog directed through the center speaker and the score and other mild effects largely confined to front of the soundstage. The characters rarely leave the confines of the apartment, but their few trips to the park and onto the streets come alive with some appropriate atmosphere and more rear activity. The original score, composed by Delpy, is anchored by a jaunty piano piece that is used repeatedly throughout, and comes through with solid fidelity. Optional English and Spanish subtitles are also included.
Extras
Special features include several featurettes, theatrical trailers, bookmarks and BD-LIVE connectivity—although, typical of a Magnolia release, the latter is inactive at this time. Favoring the law of diminishing returns, the supplemental package grows increasingly redundant, but the first few interviews are certainly worth watching. “Interview with Julie Delpy” featurette (1080p, 22 minutes 13 seconds) is a fairly straightforward featurette with the writer/director/star of “2 Days in New York”. She talks about the genesis of the project, its ties to “2 Days in Paris” (2007), writing the screenplay and creating the character of Mingus specifically for Chris Rock, her dad and his character in the film, her creative process, her character, and more. Delpy is very animated—without the hindrance of film clips or the annoying press-kit style interrupting her stream of consciousness/conversationalist approach—so this to-the-camera interview is more like a mini-commentary than anything. It’s certainly worth watching. “Interview with Chris Rock” featurette (1080p, 5 minutes 25 seconds) is a nice companion piece to the first featurette. Here, Rock talks about meeting Delpy, what drew him to the project—he says, “this is the closest I’ll get to being in a Woody Allen movie”—and what he liked about taking on a “real role” like Mingus. “Sundance Interviews” (1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen 480p) is a 5-part featurette with the actors discussing the film and their characters at the famed Sundance Film Festival. The individual interviews, presented in English and French with English subtitles, are: - Julie Delpy (11 minutes 53 seconds). - Julie Delpy and Chris Rock (9 minutes 22 seconds). - Alexia Landeau (2 minutes). - Alexandre Nahon (6 minutes 42 seconds). - Albert Delpy (5 minutes). “AXS TV: A Look a ‘2 Days in New York’” (1080p, 4 minutes 52 seconds) is a promo-y featurette. Really, it’s just an extended trailer for the film and HDNet Movies. The film’s actual theatrical trailer (1.85:1 widescreen 1080p, 1 minute 53 seconds) has also been included. Pre-menu bonus trailers are for: - “Take This Waltz” (1.78:1 widescreen 1080p, 2 minutes 25 seconds). - “360” (2.40:1 widescreen 1080p, 2 minutes 3 seconds). - “The Good Doctor” (1.85:1 widescreen 1080p, 2 minutes 24 seconds). - “Queen of Versailles” (1.78:1 widescreen 1080p, 2 minutes 31 seconds). - "AXS.tv" promo (1080p, 39 seconds).
Packaging
Magnolia Home Entertainment brings “2 Days in New York” to Blu-ray in a simple package. The single layered BD-25 is locked to Region A and comes housed in an Elite keepcase.
Overall
Late in the film, an art critic comments on Marion’s photographs: “I like the theme more than the execution.” This could be equally applied to “2 Days in New York” as a whole, although I’ll be a little less harsh, offering that I like both the theme and most of the execution. My main problem is that the second half of the film isn’t nearly as good as the relentlessly funny first hour. But, that first half—my god is it hilarious. And it’s not like the remaining 45 minutes are bad, exactly. Just at little disappointing in there formulaic predictability—even if there is a crazy creepy cameo. The blu-ray release offers a pleasing A/V presentation and some interesting extras. Recommended.
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