2 Days in Paris
2 Days in Paris (2007)—Could Judy Delpy (writer and director) learn anything from an old dead white guy, William Shakespeare? Lets compare the opening of 2 Days in Paris with one of William Shakespeare’s lesser plays (it was not even printed in his life time), a love story and comedy called As You Like It.
The first day in Paris opens with Jack and Marion, a “couple,” catching a cab. The line up is long. Jack tells a huge group of fellow Americans how to get to the Louvre, so they leave the line, but he has misdirected them so that he can get to the front of the cab line. Marion finds this endearing. Arriving at the house, Jack, a New York interior designer, meets Marion’s flamboyant French mother, and he sort of helps Marion lug her suitcase up stairs. He criticizes her old bedroom and freaks out about mold in the bathroom—this designer is a hypochondriac. Marion looks bedraggled and explains how weird she was as a kid growing up in Paris. Are you interested? Ready for more?
As You Like It opens with Orlando complaining bitterly that since his father died, his older brother has kept everything for himself, not even allowing Orlando to be educated, but instead using him as a beast of burden in the orchard. Orlando has had enough, argues with his older brother, fights, and extracts a promise that he will get part of his inheritance and his freedom. But the older brother vows to keep the money and take revenge on the young upstart. The perfect opportunity springs to mind when Charles, a wrestler who leaves opponents broken, laments to the older brother that Orlando has signed up to wrestle him. The older brother says break him. The second scene sees the beautiful and vivacious Celia (the usurping Duke’s daughter) and her best friend, Rosalind (the daughter of the rightful Duke who has been deposed) engaged in hilarious conversation. To cheer Rosalind up, Celia initiates a “sport” of witticisms. Before this repartee dies down, in walks Touchstone the Fool with a great joke or riddle to add to the fun. When Rosalind and Celia watch the wrestling, Orlando unexpectedly wins, and Rosalind is quite taken with him and vice versa. Instant chemistry. But scene three opens with the Duke banishing Rosalind. She is distraught until Celia comes up with a plan to run away with her to the Forest of Arden where the exiles are living. Are you interested? Ready for more?
More happens--with more interesting peope--in the first three scenes (not Acts!) of As You Like It than in the entire movie 2 Days in Paris.