Marion is a French-born photographer living in New York City with her neurotic, hypochondriacal, chain-smoking, heavily tattooed American interior designer boyfriend Jack. After a markedly unromantic trip to Venice, which was planned to re-ignite the passion in their relationship, they take a night train to Paris to pick up Marion's cat from her parents and decide to stay for two days. Jack is startled to learn Marion has remained in contact with numerous ex-lovers and becomes increasingly uncomfortable due to the language barrier and a multitude of her old flames she keeps meeting. Meanwhile, Marion wrestles with her own insecurities about love, relationships, and her impulsive nature.
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 seem to shift constantly according to circumstances."
In February 2010, it was announced a sequel titled 2 Days in New York was in production. Actress/director Delpy re-teamed with Polaris Film to produce the "atypical sequel." She directed the sequel in Manhattan in October and reprised her role as Marion, a Frenchwoman who now finds herself in New York with her child and a new guy, having broken up with her 2 Days in Paris lover who was played by Goldberg. "It's about the difficulty of relationships but also about the main character's evolution in general. It's a very modern story about the complexities of being a woman and not being completely consumed by your partner," Delpy explained. Comedian Chris Rock confirmed on The Howard Stern Show on 8 November 2010 that he was set to play the "new guy" in the film. Other members of the Paris cast, including Delpy's real father Albert, returned to their same roles for the film.
