2 DAYS IN PARIS, a great surprise package from Julie Delpy in 2007, showcases her smart and lovely 36-year-old self in a marvelously observant comedy-romance laced with a dash of the bittersweet, a tour de force she wrote, produced, directed, edited, scored and stars in. Global returns ticked $19,700,000, 22% of that in the States, where it nestled at 176th place. That doesn’t seem like much, but since Madame Julie and her crew mission accomplished for a trim $1,800,000 the bread baking ranks as an indie hit. Reviews agreed; it’s one of the smartest larks of that year, up there with ’07 funsters Knocked Up, Juno, Enchanted, Superbad, Walk Hard and Smiley Face. *

‘Marion’ (Delpy), a photographer, has been living in New York City with her boyfriend ‘Jack’ (Adam Goldberg, 36), an interior designer. On the rocky heels of a fizzled trip to Venice (hoping to goose their off-kilter relationship), she takes Jack to her hometown, Paris, to meet her folks and take a few days to relax from the Italian flub before heading back to the USA. She’s lively and open-minded. Jack’s quick wit is a gift but he fights an uphill battle against hypochondria, unhealthy habits (like chain-smoking) and more than a touch of brooding paranoia. Not helping his penchant for justifying suspicions is that he and Julie have repeat encounters with some of her previous flings. Paris has a more relaxed/civilized/ hyper-sexed attitude about such matters, and her parents, especially her free-spirited horndog of a dad, are bemused by Jack’s twitchy touchiness. Lust is luscious but sometimes Love and Like find that cohabiting is too labor-intensive.

JACK: “Um, so what’s the deal, man?”   MARION: “What?”   JACK: “That guy was looking at you like you were a big leg of lamb. It’s like he had the fork and the knife and the bib.”   MARION: “I am a big leg of lamb.”  JACK: “I know, but you’re my leg of lamb. How do you know him?” MARION: “Well, we met many years ago, and we had a little thing. I think I gave… I gave him a blowjob. No big deal.”   JACK: “Really? A blowjob’s no big deal?”   MARION: “Oh, I’m sorry.”   JACK: “I‘m all right.”   MARION: “No I mean, it’s no big deal in comparison to what’s going on in the world. You know, there’s George Bush, the war in Iraq, there’s Avian flu and then there’s a blowjob. You know what I mean?”   JACK: “Right, right.”   MARION: “In consideration, it’s…”  JACK: “Nice transition.”   MARION: “It’s a pretty minor event. Don’t you think?”   JACK: “I would actually say it’s not a minor event… if you wanna start talking in the grander political scheme of things. If you think about it,it was a blowjob after all, that brought down America’s last chance at a healthy democracy.”

Delpy’s savvy sexiness and earthy yet sophisticated openness make a snap-crackle contrast to Goldberg’s defensive armor of razor-bladed timing and poised-to-blow fuse of intellect-driven outrage: the madder he gets the funnier he is, the more challenging she gets the more desirable she becomes. Her real-life parents Albert Delpy, 66, and Marie Pillet, 65, ebulliently play her papa and mama ‘Jeannot’ and ‘Anna’, and Alexia Landeau, 31, fences well as her testy sister ‘Rose’. Julie & Co. blazed thru the shoot in 19 days, scoring A’s in every department she created and juggled, with Lubomir Bakchev (Rio Sex Comedy) serving the camera. All the bit players are adroitly picked: the assorted cab drivers and their unsolicited opinions are a bracing sociological treat. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the Champs-Élysées.

“It always fascinated me how people go from loving you madly to nothing at all, nothing. It hurts so much. When I feel someone is going to leave me, I have a tendency to break up first before I get to hear the whole thing.”

101 minutes, with Daniel Bruhl, Alex Nahon and Adán Jodorowsky. Five years later La Delpy delivered a sequel, 2 Days In New York.

* Delpy v. Paris: “Well, it’s a city I love, but I hate it too. It’s that kind of city. You can’t not love it. It’s like a high maintenance woman or man. Sometimes it goes well — you have a series of nice people you bump into, the cab drivers are nice. Then sometimes you’ll get a whole week of nightmares: you keep bumping into horrible cab drivers, people are rude, people are angry, you almost get run over by cars.”