Critical response Reviews were mostly positive. In the
Chicago Sun-Times,
Roger Ebert called Julie Delpy "an original, a woman who refuses to be defined or limited" and said she "has made a smart film with an edge to it... What she has done here is avoid all temptation to recycle the usual lovers-in-Paris possibilities, and has created two original, quirky characters so obsessed with their differences that Paris is almost a distraction."
Stephen Holden of
The New York Times said the film "is an inside-out version of the much-admired
Richard Linklater films
Before Sunrise and
Before Sunset, in which Ms. Delpy and
Ethan Hawke portray a French-American pair who meet, part and reunite years later. Where Mr. Linklater's movies were weepies for the kind of educated, upscale young cosmopolites who have a soft spot for romances like
Casablanca, Ms. Delpy's examination of modern love among the almost young and still restless is bracingly hard-headed." In her review for the
Los Angeles Times, Carina Chocano said, "At first blush,
2 Days in Paris looks like it's going to be the story of a culture-clashing couple. But slowly and rather slyly, Delpy zeros in on something much more subtle and complex. What interests her are not the superficial differences between people from different countries... but the way in which the distances between people, genders and cultures (the very distances we rely on to grant us the perspective needed to see how completely insane other people, genders, cultures really are) seem to shift constantly according to circumstances."
Accolades Delpy was nominated for the
César Award for Best Original Screenplay, the
European Film Awards Audience Award for Best Film, and the
Independent Spirit Award for Best First Film. The film won the Coup de Cœur Award from the Mons International Festival of Love Films. It also won the
Prix Jacques Prévert du Scénario for Best Original Screenplay in 2008. ==Sequel==