Weekly meditations from your humble messenger
Tell
Me You Love Me, Julie Delpy
(2 Days in Paris; Tell Me You Love Me, 10/1/07)
By Nicholas Nicastro
A
friend of mine has taken to referring to French actress Julie Delpy
as "that Delpy girl." The phrase was meant to have a perjorative
ring ("that dumpy girl"), but with the release of Delpy's
starring roles in Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, Before Sunset,
and now her own directorial debut in 2 Days In Paris , adjectivizing
her surname is starting to make sense. To be "delpy" is to
be winsome in a semi-cracked way, as well as exceedingly articulate—albeit
with a fetching overseas accent. Other actresses have approached delpicity
in certain roles, such as Kate Winslet in Jude. But, mais
oui, no one is more Delpy than Julie.
Like Linklater's romantic talkfests,
2 Days in Paris is a cross-cultural character-drama played in
a minor key. Delpy is Marion, a French-born photographer who happens
to be visually-impaired. After vacationing in Venice, she brings her
American boyfriend Jack (Adam Goldberg) to Paris, ostensibly to pick
up their cat on their way back to New York. What Marion and Jack encounter
in the City of Lights, however, is cultural indigestion, as well as
too much evidence of Marion's prior romantic life. In trying to protect
Jack from the inconvenient truth, Marion lies badly; Jack, meanwhile,
finds his only relief from hating Paris is indulging in nebbishy self-pity.
At first it seems impossible to
care what happens to this pair, who resemble nothing other than Larry
David sleeping with a female version of himself. But Delpy generates
surprising sympathy for her lovers, mostly by her witty, observant writing
of the kind of scenes every couple can recognize, such as having them
jointly deride a tacky circa-1986 bedspread in Marion's old room, or
facing persistent weirdos together on the subway. The irony becomes
that people who individually seem almost too delicate to be alive can
make a surprisingly durable couple—surely reason enough to stay
in the game of love.
* * *
HBO
just aired the third episode of its new series Tell Me You Love Me,
so it's probably not too early to venture some thoughts. The series,
which is mostly known for bringing unprecendented explicitness to its
scenes of married sex, is noteworthy for its laser-like concentration
on the romantic travails of four couples—twentysomethings Jamie
and Hugo (Michelle Borth and Luke Farrell Kirby), thirtysomethings Carolyn
and Palek (Sonya Walger and Adam Scott), fortysomethings Katie and David
(Ally Walker and Tim DeKay), and sixtysomethings May and Arthur (Jane
Alexander and David Selby).
The younger couples all have chronic,
lifestage-appropriate problems (jealousy, inability to conceive, and
sexual poop-out, respectively). So far, only the seniors seem to have
their act together—a fact that inspires much marital ardor (and,
God help us, scenes of sixtysomething coitus that are best left to the
imagination). The moral—that few of us master this particular game
until the fourth quarter—would be deeply depressing if not for
the charm of some of the characters. Ally Walker's Katie, who is reduced
to attending couples counseling by herself, is particularly heroic and
cowardly.
Without a doubt, Tell Me You
Love Me is frank. The premiere episode included a scene where Carolyn,
suspecting the quality of Palek's semen, gives him a handjob that culminates
in an onscreen ...um... culmination. (Carolyn performs this with all
the clinical curiosity of an animal tech getting a sample from a captive
ape.) Perhaps the most surprising thing about the show is the way its
makers overcompensate for the inevitable charge that they're selling
medium-core porn. As some wit has noted, married sex can be "same
sex" in the sense of "monotonous," but it's odd that
none of these folks ever seem to go with any position but straight,
wholesome missionary style. Couples therapy isn't the only way to get
a different angle on the same old partner.
©2007 Nicholas Nicastro
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