LOOK AT ME
Directed & Written by: Agnès Jaoui.
Produced by: Jean-Philippe Andraca & Christian Berard.
Written by: Agnès Jaoui & Jean-Pierre Bacri.
Director of Photography: Stéphane Fontaine.
Edited by: François Migier.
Music by: Philippe Rombi.
Released by: Sony Pictures Classics.
Language: French with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: France. 110 min. Rated: PG-13.
With: Marilou Berry, Agnès Jaoui, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Laurent Grevill, Virginie Desarnauts, Keine Bouhiza & Grégoire Oestermann.

Plain and overweight, Lolita is too easily overlooked, whether by the bouncer with the velvet rope or by her own father, well-know writer Etienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri), who preens with his much younger beautiful wife Karine (Virginie Desarnauts) draped around his arm. To her father, Lolita is "anger on wheels." Yet Etienne never bothers to explore why, even though he has yet to listen to the vocal tape she expressively made for him. Even her Baroque vocal teacher, Sylvia (Agnès Jaoui), is about to drop Lolita until she finds out her father is the Etienne Cassard. Sylvia, whose husband is a bottom-list author with a new novel about to debut, changes her tune and becomes Lolita's confidant. Sylvia's acts of kindness pay off when she and her husband, Pierre (Laurent Grevill), are invited to a weekend in the country with Lolita and her father.

This is a solid follow-up to director/writer Agnès Jaoui's The Taste of Others, which received a best foreign language Oscar nomination in 2001. Look at Me, though, has more bite; Jaoui has created a glitterati set propelled by flattery and self-interest. Part of the joy of this nuanced film is watching the characters dissemble and flaunt their flaws. Twenty-year-old Lolita revels in self-pity and romantic melodrama. Living under her famous father's shadow, she keeps Sébastien (Keine Bouhiza), an aspiring journalist, at arms length, afraid he's just another person using her for her connections. Like her father, Lolita overlooks the obvious.

The translated English subtitles are straightforward yet capture the humor, dispelling the rarefied air. (Etienne is dismissive in his behavior, as he is in his speech). Jaoui's witty comedy of manners has an empathy that recalls the works of Woody Allen in the 1980s. Here, as in Allen's films, women are valued for their beauty while their brains and talents are given lip service; however Jaoui does not let this slide. Although as observant as Taste, Look is not as tightly written; there's one sycophant too many with Etienne's fawning yes-man, Vincent (Grégoire Oestermann). Vincent doesn't take part in the plot; he only adds to Jaoui's already well-established milieu. Kent Turner
April 1, 2005