OK, it's just a romance movie!

Rating: 8/10 (30 April 2007)

I'm the type of film-goer who normally indulges his video appetite with crime drama, intrigue and Cold War suspense flicks. However, I now find myself vicariously watching this momentarily reunited couple walk and talk through the streets of Paris. What's going on here? What kind of bourgeois sentimentality is this? Why am I watching a romance film?
I'll tell you why: it's a gas! I had been so amped up with Iraqi war fatalities, Va. Tech. shooting news analyses, etc., that I needed something to watch to chill me out just a little. And this was just what Dr. Feelgood ordered. At first, I wondered whether Ethan Hawke was going to be another phony self-serving existentialistic pseudo novelist or was he going to lighten up and go a little further into his character. Alas, he did lighten up, and he and Julie hit it off from that initial meeting onward. But, to me, the real carrier of the thespian torch was undeniably Julie Delpy: No holds barred emotional outpouring, but without any accompanying self-pity. She encapsulated modern day woman, with all the verve, intelligence, beauty and also, the vulnerability. No shame in her game in an outstanding performance!
The two of them continued along their Parisian stroll with soul searching dialog and the usual "what have you been doing?" stuff, but, more importantly, with so much free-flowing wit and zest for life. My bottom line proof of enjoyment is while watching this movie unfold, I had a constant grin on my face, eating up the sequences of events and enjoying the related inevitable tension that was building up along their soulful journey.
But in the end, Julie's gorgeous 3/4 time song with her own vocal and guitar accompaniment coupled with the Nina Simone song shortly thereafter was an ever so poignant conclusion to a most memorable movie. As Ethan said about the plane to catch in the final scene... well, you see it for yourself!