Writer-director Julie Delpy and Chris Rock play a couple living together in a cramped New York City apartment with their kids from previous relationships when her eccentric French family comes for a visit. Most French are reserved and impeccably polite; because that’s not funny, Delpy wrote her visitors to be very badly behaved extreme hedonists. The stress of the first visit by the in-laws, the claustrophobia of packing people into a tiny apartment and language and cultural barriers are all promising comic situations. A mid-range comedy, 2 Days in New York has its moments.
As a screenwriter, Delpy’s strengths are a keen eye for family dysfunction, brisk pacing and a willingness to get raunchy. But much of the broadest gags in 2 Days in New York fall flat. There is a funny bit about Delpy’s emotionally brittle artist literally selling her soul as a piece of performance art. And it’s funny when Delpy invents a preposterous tragedy to avoid facing a complaint from a neighbor. But the funniest moments are two Chris Rock monologues when he retreats to his man cave to converse with a large poster of Barack Obama.
I wouldn’t recommend a special trip to the theater to see 2 Days in New York, but it’s a pleasant enough diversion to watch on DVD or stream later this year.