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Look at Me (2004)

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From Time Out London

Agnès Jaoui’s marvellous movie is nominally centred on Lolita Cassard (Marilou Berry), a 20-year-old classical singer happy neither with her looks nor her relationship with her successful but self-centred writer father Etienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri); but it actually gives just as much room to her music teacher Sylvia (Jaoui), the woman’s struggling-novelist hubby Pierre (Laurent Grevill) and sundry other characters. All are caught up in an absurd, horribly familiar (from life, rather than cinema) dance of attraction and repulsion, ambition and disappointment, loyalty and betrayal. To reveal more would diminish the many pleasures to be had from what was one of the most warmly received films in Cannes last May; quite simply, it’s an enormously witty, touching, wondrously perceptive roundelay that examines contemporary manners and attitudes to family, friendship, physical appearance, celebrity, sex, age, art, class and the whole damn thing.
Some, I suppose, might bemoan the focus on arty bourgeois Parisians, but given that that’s exactly the milieu Jaoui and Bacri are coming from, the account of their pretensions and often egotistical behaviour is beautifully barbed, unsentimental and credible; the couple’s writing is razor-sharp, the performances deft, carefully nuanced and rounded. (Even a character one might initially dismiss as a bimbo stereotype is allowed her moment of truth.) Are the articulate dialogue, humanist concerns and fascination with the relationship between life and art a bit old-fashioned? Who cares? This is exemplary cinema in the classical tradition, as lucid, subtle and pertinent in its social and philosophical implications as it is entertaining in its storytelling. Bravo!

Author: GA

Time Out London Issue 1785: November 03-10, 2004

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User reviews of this film

Archipom said...

Posted on Dec 11 2008 11:29 Beautiful, warm - now I want to see everything else this brilliant French woman director made.

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Technoguy said...

Posted on Feb 03 2008 22:04 Trust the French to get under the skin of appearances,at which they are so good.The husband and wife(Jeanne-pierre and Agnes Bactri) both write,act in and (she)direct this film set in the bourgoise artistic milieu centred on Lolita,a desperately unhappy girl.Lolita is worried about being overweight and unattractive,despite her singing talent.Her low self esteem comes from her self-centred father,an egotistical but successful writer(Eteienne). Lolita feels people want to get to know her for the wrong reasons,especially when they find out who her father is. Lolita's singing teacher,Sylvia is an important character and she is unhappy herself.Her husband is an aspiring writer too.these two groups find an intersection in Lolita as the two writers connect which leads to success and publishing offers.the unfolding nature of many relationships reaches subtlety through the way it is so easy to misinterpret the intentions of others or the way they respond to the wrong aspects,also the way we exploit other people for our own ends.Image(comme une image)vs reality done with such great humour.

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