Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Ma femme est une actrice (2001)

Director: Yvan Attal

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Journalist Yvan (Attal) grows jealous when a London shoot requires his actress wife Charlotte (Gainsbourg) to strip naked with suave co-star John (Stamp). No sooner has she left Paris than he's backwards and forwards being a pest and starting fights on Eurostar. Just because he's paranoid, it doesn't mean she hasn't been tempted - though it's more self-fulfilling prophecy than the torrid affair he fears, especially after he takes an acting class, where he fancies another student. On the plus side, it's warm, fresh and often funny (the film-within-the-film that's causing all the fuss looks more like a third-rate soap). Attal cuts a suitably catty and ridiculous figure driving the charming Gainsbourg (his real wife) to distraction; negotiating a minefield, they make a sympathetic pair. On the minus side, the director seems bound by genre demands when you suspect he'd rather wander off leash. He's at his best freewheeling, but a well-observed subplot (Yvan's pregnant Jewish sister argues constantly with her husband, who's against circumcision) is awkwardly integrated, while Charlotte's affair (even as a desultory fling born of circumstance) is unpersuasive.There's more right than wrong, though. With lots of love for life in general, and Gainsbourg in particular, it's a touching billet doux.

Author: SS 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Yvan Attal

Producer: Claude Berri

Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Yvan Attal, Terence Stamp, Noémie Lvovsky, Laurent Bateau, Ludivine Sagnier, Lionel Abelanski, Keith Allen full cast

Duration: 95 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.