REVIEWED - LOOK AT ME (COMME UNE IMAGE): At Cannes this year, the two outstanding French films in competition received awards, coincidentally both of them going to women for films on which they collaborated with their ex-husbands: Maggie Cheung was named best actress for Clean, directed by Olivier Assayas, and Agnès Jaoui took the best screenplay prize for Look at Me, sharing it with her co-writer and co-star in the film, Jean-Pierre Bacri, writes Michael Dwyer
This is Jaoui's second film as actor, writer and director. In the style of a Woody Allen movie transposed to Paris, it mischievously - and artfully - entangles the romantic and creative complications among two generations of culturally steeped bourgeoisie.
Etienne (Bacri) is an acerbic, arrogant writer and publisher whose second wife (Virginie Desarnauts) is half his age. In his self-absorption, he is insensitive to the problems of his daughter, Lolita (Marilou Berry), a student singer deeply unhappy with her weight and suffering from low self-esteem.
Lolita's unassuming teacher, Sylvia (Jaoui) is married to a struggling novelist whose latest book catches Etienne's attention. And there is a new ray of hope in Lolita's unhappy life when she meets Sebastian, a young journalist who has changed his name from Rachid.
The perceptive screenplay is shaped as an elegant and consistently entertaining serious comedy under Jaoui's aptly unshowy direction. As it reflects on its themes of personal and professional insecurities, the allure of celebrity and the trappings of fame, the movie is rich in brusquely witty dialogue and consistently acutely observed.
This energetically paced comedy also pokes well-deserved fun at, among several other targets, the tackiness of French TV talk shows and the intrusive nature of mobile phones. The ensemble cast is splendid, especially Bacri as a tower of precious vanity, and Berry (the daughter of actress-director Josiane Balasko), in a most auspicious film début.
