The verisimilitude of the dialogue, the intelligence of the story, the casting, the attention to real things, the music, the complicated emotional life, the wit, the awful truth -- these are givens in any Henry Jaglom movie. It's all there in the filmmaker's latest entry, Festival In Cannes.

Set during the actual Cannes festival of 2000, Festival In Cannes uses the movie business as a metaphor for love relationships -- or possibly vice-versa. Jaglom whisks you to the annual cinema outing and bun fight at Cannes, a chaotic site where the usual lying, cheating, deal-making, sucking-up and backstabbing of the film industry go into overdrive.

Greta Scacchi stars as an actress who is going to make a small, independent film. She has put together a beautiful script that needs a mature leading lady.

Anouk Aimee plays an aging star who is in Cannes for a retrospective of her films. She is very interested in the project Scacchi's character brings her.

But then an established, albeit sleazy, Hollywood producer shows up (Ron Silver) and offers Aimee a small part in a Tom Hanks movie. Hmmnn ... money. Hmnnn ... art. It's all so confusing. Which film should she choose?

Advice is available from Aimee's ex-husband, the egotistical womanizer and filmmaker Viktor Kovner (Maximilian Schell), whose decision-making ability is what you might call fluid. Also on the scene is a human oil slick business hustler called Kaz (Zack Norman), as well as a young actress (Jenny Gabrielle) who finds herself the centre of attention when the small film in which she stars becomes the hit of the festival.

In the midst of all these movie biz goings-on, love keeps popping up. The relationships are just as furtive, opportunistic, exaggerated, confusing and deceptive as the business deals. Well, power and money are big aphrodisiacs.

Festival In Cannes is often blackly funny, and you don't need any insider status to get the jokes. As well, there are no punchlines and no elbows in the ribs, thank the goddess, in this brand of grown-up humour.

At one point in Festival In Cannes, Scacchi explains that the movie she wants to make is about grown ups and that it's for all the people who've given up going to the cinema. Oddly, that's the very movie Jaglom has made here. For all the wit and hoopla, Festival In Cannes offers rare insight into the structure of relationships.

As wiseacre goes, the emphasis here is on wise.

(This film is rated AA)

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