PLOT: An overweight young woman, who's keenly aware that people are only interested in her to meet her famous-author father, finds solace in the encouragement of her voice teacher. Unfortunately, the teacher only wants to advance her husband's career by hooking him up with the dad.
It's funny what the French cherry-pick from the U.S. culture they otherwise despise -- Mickey Rourke, snowboarding, Sylvester Stallone, jazz and Woody Allen movies.
And why not Woody? His characters are effete, dislikable, screwed-up urbanites, and well ... bourgeois is a French word, isn't it?
Agnes Jaoui's Look At Me could almost be an homage to the Wood-man -- or at least to his post-funny career. Her Paris is very much like his New York, full of neurotic, career-obsessed denizens whose noses are habitually up each other's derrieres. Most of it takes place either at hellishly glamorous soirees or tasteful dinner parties where relationships are forged on the basis of mutual advantage.
The only real difference is, this being Paris, people smoke.
Forgive me if this sounds at all vitriolic, but if you've ever been to a Film Festival party, Look At Me might give you flashbacks.
The set-up is mechanically perfect. Lolita (Marilou Berry) is an overweight young woman, made bitter by the fact that people (including her putative boyfriends) are only friendly to her to get close to her famous father Etienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri), an author, pundit and publisher.
It's doubly-wounding to Lolita, since her father is crushingly cruel, vain and self-obsessed. Her only solace is her amateur opera group and the attentions of her professionally-trained teacher Sylvia (played by director Jaoui). Trouble is, Sylvia is bored and horrified by her "students" and plans to quit -- until, that is, she discovers who Lolita's father is. Ding! Sylvia, you see, has a husband Pierre (Laurent Grevill) who's also a writer, albeit an unsuccessful one. A little schmoozin' might be just what le medicin ordered.
Add to the mix Sebastien (Keine Bouhiza), a morose young man who is legitimately besotted with Lolita after she performs an act of kindness. Unfortunately, after a lifetime of cruelty, she has no way of telling legitimate affection from the fake kind and treats him cavalierly as a defence mechanism.
Amid all the decadence at parties and country-places, Sylvia and Lolita are the only two characters allowed the decency of a character arc -- both of which you can see coming all the way from Bourdeaux. It's left to Sylvia to be the only one with the moral fibre to realize that she's devoted her life to empty values (because, well, the director is playing her). And Lolita? It's patently obvious from the beginning that Sebastien doesn't even like her father. Lolita, however, needs a little time to figure it out -- like, say, the entire duration of the film.
Other than these two, all and sundry carry on obliviously, using each other like a daisychain of media lampreys. You might eat this up. For me it's too much like a documentary.
(This film is rated PG)
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