I first heard about this movie from my parents, who said they were surprised by how raunchy the film was. I saw it and loved it, and didn't find it too dirty at all -- although the naked pictures with balloons were a bit weird. Say no more, you'll have to see the movie to get that reference. Julie Delpy, writing, directing, editing, and starring as lead Marion, is a great neurotic photographer in the spirit of a Woody Allen film, and Adam Goldberg, as Jack, is her neurotic interior designer boyfriend.
The film is simple in its plot, but I think Delpy's just so good she makes it look easy. After an anticlimactic romantic getaway in Venice, a frustrated Jack and Marion stop for 2 days in Paris before returning to New York. Right off the bat, the dialogue is fast and funny, with a hilarious scene with Jack encountering some American tourists from the heartland. Jack meets Delpy's eccentric family, her beautiful sister, and her artistic friends and many ex-boyfriends -- leading him into hilarious fits of jealousy.
Overall, the film is great fun and has a brain. Delpy strikes a good balance of showing the positives and negatives of her home country and the U.S. -- for example, the French are a classy, exciting people, but cab drivers make openly racist jokes -- it's still a slightly backwards place. Adam is a stereotypical New York guy -- half Jewish, half Catholic, with hipster tattoos all over his body, slightly whiny, but acerbically funny and cynical. In one scene, when Marion takes him on the Paris metro, he begins tensing up with fear, and starts talking about 9/11. It's a sensitive moment that people outside NYC wouldn't really understand. But then his fear manifests itself, when a creep on the train stares openly and lustfully at Marion. Jack tries to scare him off, gives up, and it ends up being a funny moment that scares away fear with laughter. Delpy's wonderful touch with these delicate moments makes the movie a winner, even though the ending feels like it could have gone either way and probably came off the editing room floor. A film this good doesn't need a better ending -- you kind of wish it just kept going.