Product: Look at Me ( Comme une image ) ( Cos fan tutti ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - Australia ]
Rating: 3.0
Convincing because of its intelligence....but not intriguing
Sometimes there's a fine line between convincing and intriguing. Here's one of those cases--a French film that cries out for recognition, exactly simulating its title and its female lead, an overweight vocally talented girl in her 20s whose father, an arrogant prig, is a successful writer/publisher and with whom she has an abrasive relationship because of it.The film convinces because there is much to admire in the often intelligent dialogue and the acting as well is quite good. But just as often, the focus of the interchange between characters is so petty that just as the co-writer/director/actress of this film (Agnes Jaoui) says in one scene of a specific character, it's "tiresome".The casting is right on target and the acting, as noted, is excellent. But to continually have characters squabble about the same thing over and over again noticeably takes away from the substance of the film. Yet one of the pluses here is the music--a glorious panorama of Schubert songs, Mozart, Beethoven, Spanish folk-pop and even American hip-hop, and they all work. It's actually a huge relief when Lolita (the overweight girl) sings with her group because we are relieved from the tiresome pettiness of dysfunctional family interchange and can listen to some truly uplifting sounds.This is not really a bad film, but instead is one which, in repeatedly stating to its audience "attention will be paid", decidedly lessens its impact.