Chris Rock and Julie Delpy (Magnolia Pictures)

Overture: a puppet theater introduces the main players of 2 Days in New York—a thirty-something French woman, her toddler from a previous relationship, her annoying former boyfriend, her cool New York boyfriend, his daughter from a previous relationship, and her family coming to visit from France. Julie Delpy is the star, director and co-writer of a movie which is at its most simple an act of storytelling about life and relationships. It already has a leg up on its predecessor; 2 Days in Paris, by leaving her insufferable former co-star Adam Goldberg to be played by a sock.

Marion (Delpy) and Mingus (Chris Rock) live in a noisy apartment in New York’s Chinatown, and for much of the film the couple is frustrated in their attempts to have sex: noisy neighbors, a too-loud apartment buzzer and a visit from Marion’s family. Perhaps it’s because of this constant frustration that their relationship never feels convincing. Despite that, the frustrations are convincing and sometimes hilarious, and much of the humor comes from inevitable culture clash. Marion’s nymphomaniac sister Rose (co-screenwriter Alexia Landeau) has a new lover Manu (Alex Nahon) who thinks he’s hip, but he treats Mingus like something out of a Lenny Bruce skit, patronizingly asking how he feels about Obama.

Delpy’s own script falls for the same attitude in as a couple of embarrassing sequences in which Mingus chats with an Obama cut-out, as if that’s what black people do. I look forward to Chris Rock’s monologue on the making of the film, which should have given him a chance to act but left him with an undeveloped character who’s mostly a foil for the script’s culture clash.

Albert Delpy and Chris Rock (Magnolia Pictures)

The surprise is Marion’s father Jeannot, played by Delpy’s own father Albert. (Both of Delpy‘s parents had roles in the 2007 film, but her mother Marie Pillet passed away in 2009). In the puppet theater, Delpy pere is represented by a soft Santa Claus, and when we meet him he’s a smelly but harmless old fogey who smuggles sausage and cheese. But he becomes increasingly disruptive, a hilarious Falstaffian character who steals a lot of scenes from Chris Rock.

All this probably sounds really unpleasant, but the actors are winning enough — and, despite plenty of hip cachet at work, earnest enough — to carry the movie even through its many bickering moments. The setting helps too. So many movies are made in New York that the location can be a cliché, but Delpy has a good eye for the energy of the city, capturing it in a speeded-up cab ride through the city and a family tour told in a series of still photographs show for fractions of a second.

Marion happens to be a photographer, and the film’s second act revolves around a gallery show of her work, and the repercussions of its reception. Marion’s photos of herself with various lovers (but clothed) look at relationships in a manner like a more self-conscious Nan Goldin, but the quality of Marion’s work is not the issue so much as something else on her price list. I’m reluctant to even hint at what it is — but it gives the movie intrigue and, despite a kind of insider-jokiness, it fits with the movie’s sense of the creative class earnestly trying to come to terms with big and little questions: of existence, and of daily life.

I couldn’t get through Delpy’s 2007 directorial debut because of her incessantly whiny partner, and went into this sequel with lowered expectations. But despite the aforementioned issues, I really enjoyed the controlled chaos that Delpy pulls off. The film ends back in the puppet theater, with a developing cast of characters. But as life and relationships have complications that can’t be conveyed within the confines of cloth and cardboard, the real work of storytelling takes place outside the box. Which isn’t to say that the movie “thinks outside the box.” Just that life happens outside it.

—

2 Days in New York
Directed by Julie Delpy
Written by Julie Delpy, Alexia Landeau, and Alexandre Nahon.
With Chris Rock, Julie Delpy, Albert Delpy, Alexia Landeau, Alexandre Nahon, and Dylan Baker.
Rated R for language, sexual content, some drug use and brief nudity.
Running time 91 minutes
Opens today At Landmark E Street Cinema.