What Makes David Run?

David (Huster) - a frantic scriptwriter from an upwardly mobile Jewish family - struggles at both his relationship with his adoring but independent girlfriend, and with his latest movie project, a semi-comic, semi-autobiographical account of family life, the main scenes of which are shown as he dreams them up. The film's strengths and faults are similar to those in Fellini, to whose 82 and Amarcord there are clear resemblances. Family rituals are remembered with grotesque emphasis on their larger-than-life absurdity; history pokes its nervous nose in now and again; nostalgia is allowed free rein. Problems arise from the fact that the central character is such a self-obsessed, approval-seeking little shit that we never really care about his situation, even when the too-neatly muted moments of pain occur. Still, never taking itself too seriously, it is lively and amusing enough.