10 minutes in and I was ready to vomit
Where to begin with this dreck? I'm all for movies that take on a new structure and in that sense I think Linklater did something fresh here, but the content that filled that form was simply awful. I'm sure the characters and their interminable conversation made blood run warm at whatever film festivals this played, but unless you're a perpetual graduate student in some form of grievance studies these two characters are annoying whiners who don't seem to grasp the concept of growing up.
It was as if the writers took the idealized version of liberal life and set about trying to tick off as many boxes as possible. "Let's see, we'll have them both be bohemian artistes. They'll live in Manhattan and Paris, and the man will even mock his Texan father for having never crossed the Mississippi into civilization. Paris, the setting of the film, will consist entirely of charming, quiet alleys and canals with little hint of automobile traffic. The woman will be so leftist that even working for the government won't be fulfilling enough for her; instead, she'll be saving Mother Gaia from the nasty scourge of human beings. She'll live, not in a modern apartment, but in a communal sort of building that's charming in its rusticity, where everyone gets along like family despite their superficial eccentricities. Oh, and we'll have her play guitar too, while turning her nose up at those icky guns that cowboy-ish Americans often own. He'll be a quasi-hipster who shuns the stifling institution of marriage but is just noble enough to stick it out for the sake of his innocent son (while bedding down with his willowy French muse). Ah, and he'll be an author who charms even the cynical French press with his deep musings on the meaning of life. One more thing, don't forget to have the woman wax lyrical about how liberating Soviet Poland was due to its lack of commercialism."
What's that? The movie didn't make any money? Well, knock me down with a feather!