Comme une image

Plot synopsis:
The protagonist, Lolita Cassard, lacks confidence and self-esteem because she doesn't look like the women who fill the pages of fashion magazines. Her father, Étienne Cassard, is a respected novelist, but rarely considers the feelings of others, only thinking of himself and worrying about aging. Pierre Millet, a younger writer, doubts he will ever be successful. Meanwhile, Sylvia Millet, a singing teacher, believes in her husband's talent, but doubts her own and that of her student, Lolita. When Sylvia discovers that Lolita is the daughter of Étienne, an author whom she admires, she befriends Lolita in order to gain access to Étienne for her husband's sake. Lolita does not believe or see that Sylvia is just another person being generous to her because her father is famous. She begins to confide in Sylvia about her father, love life, and self-confidence issues. Sylvia surprisingly takes a liking to Lolita and begins to see Étienne for the man he really is. Throughout the film Sébastien, a young journalist, befriends Lolita. He is the only one with pure intents, even after he finds out who her father is. He takes a liking to Lolita, but she refuses to show any interests and is only infatuated with another boy, Mathieu. Mathieu is everything Sébastien is not. Mathieu only has interest for Lolita because of her father and mistreats her. Lolita casts all of these same behaviors on Sébastien and does not realize that he truly does like her for herself. After a crazy weekend at Étienne's cottage, Sylvia leaves Pierre because he has become just like Étienne, Lolita goes after Sébastien because she realizes he has honest intentions, and Étienne is repeatedly reminded that he is an indifferent father to Lolita.

Tags: romantic

Review:
Lolita is a pudgy young woman with a very low self-esteem even though she's got a beautiful voice and passion for singing) who desperately craves her father's attention.
20 year-old Lolita (Marilou Berry) aspires to be a singer.More than this, she desperately wants attention - any attention - from her father Étienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri), a self-absorbed novelist whose neglect of his daughter and rudeness to those around him borders on the cruel.Overweight and lacking in self-confidence, Marilou isn't helped by her assumption that those who befriend her view her only as a route to her famous and successful father.
This certainly seems true of Lolita's singing teacher Sylvia (Agnès Jaoui), whose husband Pierre (Laurent Grévill) is an aspiring writer himself.And although Sébastien (Keine Bouhiza), whom Lolita meets by chance, seems genuine in his intentions, Lolita's fragile self-esteem and obsession with her father seem destined to thwart any future they might have.Emotionally damaged, self-serving or merely flawed, this ensemble of eminently believable characters is superbly played under Agnès Jaoui's fluid direction.
Add in an intelligent and witty screenplay (co-written by Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri) and you have a poignant yet subtly comical film that goes to the heart of the issue of fame and the affect on those in and around its spotlight.
Lolita is a dedicated vocal student, whose most serious problem is that her father--played by Jean-Pierre Bacri--is too self-absorbed to pay much attention to her.
Étienne Cassard is a noted author and publisher, who cares about his work, his position of power, and, to some extent, his beautiful trophy wife and their young daughter (Lolita's half-sister).
She must be Wonder Woman!)Sylvia has true compassion and affection for Lolita, but she's not a saint, and is not above using her influence with Lolita to advance her husband's writing career.To my mind, Agnès Jaoui represents the perfect French film star.
Aside from the main father/daughter relationship, the film is full of types that are at once fresh and recognizable (the unctuous friend of the celebrity, the slightly defeated wife of an author, who has subsumed her own passions for music to his passion to be a famous author).
Agnés Jaoui, who co-wrote and directed, also has a major acting role in this story of several people who buzz around a self-centered, rich and famous writer and publisher.
Writer/director and star Agnès Jaoui (her co-author is her ex-husband Jean-Pierre Bacri who also stars) is obviously an intelligent, observant, caustic chronicler of contemporary French society who dotes on celebrities at the expense of their own self-respect.
Their interaction provides the venom that in Jaoui's hands raises the bar on the range of comedy.Étienne Cassard (Jean-Pierre Bacri) is a famous writer whose latest novel has been 'transformed' into a schmaltzy film about which he is loathsomely embarrassed.
Lolita's music coach is Sylvia (Agnès Jaoui) whose demands on her students reflect her frustrated life being married to an unknown author Pierre (Laurent Grévill).
Odd paths cross and it is through Lolita's influence as the daughter of a famous writer Étienne that Sylvia arranges for Pierre to join forces with Étienne and gain acceptance and popularity, but the consequences include Sylvia's increased tutelage for Lolita and her group of fellow madrigal singers.Lolita comes the closest to being a character about whom we care.
The film ends with Lolita's awakening to the richness of a sharing society, while the director announces where her sympathies lie courtesy of the father's hi fi player.Yet another French cultural swipe at Hollywood.
The title made more sense to me after I thought for a while.EVERYBODY in the film was saying, "Look at me!" which I think was the title of Pierre's book that he got accepted in the movie.Lolita, of course, is saying to her father, Etienne, "Look at me, your daughter," as well as to everyone else, "Look at me for more than the chubby adolescent.
I'm more than the daughter of the famous guy you want to curry favor with."Etienne is saying, "Look at me (and my beautiful wife young enough to be my daughter)" and always striving for recognition (well displayed at the party where he forces the mogul to come over to HIM).Sylvia, the music teacher, is certainly saying to her husband, Pierre, "Look at me, instead of obsessing over your 3rd book!
For crying out loud, the other books got published and were well-reviewed." She tentatively enjoys it when the party guy really DOES look at her and they dance.Pierre says, "Look at me," in his burning quest for publication and chasing the association with Etienne.Karine, Etienne's young wife, probably was saying, "Look at me," when she married the famous author but then doesn't get enough of his time/attention, particularly because he's always checking out the new potential trophies.
This is a film about disorientation and alienation between an impressionable young woman and her self centered father.Young Lolita is a talented girl.
Her music teacher, the kind Sylvia, has too much to do with all her students to pay particular attention to this plump, but pretty, girl until she hears about Lolita being the daughter of the influential Etienne Cassard.The problem with Etienne is that he has married a younger woman who apparently loves him, but Karine has definite ideas about what is to have BCBG (bon chic, bon genre) among her circle.
When at the end, during Lolita's triumphal recital, Etienne runs away from the church where the concert is being held, he does the ultimate coward act of his life; in a way he betrays the daughter who loves him and is trying to show she is worthy of his love.The film is well written, but the problem is that some of the characters appear to be one dimensional people.
Agnes Jaoui's Look at Me is an almost perfectly-pitched comic character study, a nimble, amusing and thoughtful portrait of flawed people and their unlikely relationships.
The principals form their attachments through a combination of accident and ambition: Lolita (Marilou Berry), the daughter of famous writer Etienne Cassard (Jean-Pierre Bacri), seeks the aid of an overworked music teacher, Sylvia (Agnes Jaoui), in rehearsing her chorale group for an up-coming performance.
Sylvia has no interest in helping Lolita, whom she considers a bit of a pest, until realizing who Lolita's father is; wishing to meet the famous Cassard, who might be able to help her struggling-writer husband Pierre's (Laurent Grevill) career, Sylvia agrees to coach the ensemble.
Things come to a head, however, during one of those beloved French weekends in the country (where would French cinema be without weekends in the country): Cassard demonstrates himself to be a jerk by dressing-down his young, attractive wife Karine (Virginie Desarnauts) in front of everyone; Lolita realizes that her boyfriend Mathieu (Julien Baumgartner) is only interested in her because she's the daughter of the famous Cassard; Sylvia realizes what a jerk SHE is for trying to use poor Lolita, etc., The central character, Lolita, has the misfortune of being the off-spring of a famous man; she seems doomed always to exist in his shadow, to fail in every effort to gain attention for herself (to get someone to look at her).
The other important relationship is that of Sylvia to Pierre; Sylvia seems a woman of integrity, despite her rather shameless use of Lolita to gain entrée into Cassard's circle, but Pierre, after years of struggle, seems all-too-willing to toss his principles out the window in the name of success (he appears on a ridiculous talk-show, confetti raining on his head and half-naked girls grinding in his face; Sylvia can only sit on the sofa and stare in astonishment at what her husband has gotten himself into).
Her father, Cassard, is played by Jean-Pierre Bacri as a man who has bought into his own hype so completely that he's forgotten he was ever anyone other than the eminent personage he's become (he's forgotten what it was like to be young and insecure like Lolita, and behaves thoughtlessly toward her).
As Sylvia, Agnes Jaoui finds a sort of middle-ground between Lolita's self-doubt and Cassard's arrogance; and as her confused husband Pierre, Laurent Grevill projects the right kind of blandness alongside the dynamic Cassard, whom he idolizes but doesn't measure up to (Cassard may be a creep, but he wouldn't be caught dead on a dumb TV show).
(In the beginning of the story, they don't, is the answer.) The film is directed by, and stars, a highly talented woman, Agnes Jaoui, and the original screenplay is written by her and Jean-Pierre Bacri.
Bacri has thus helped to create a mercilessly unflattering part for himself, which he plays in the film, of a man so obsessed with himself and his celebrity that he notices no one, least of all his daughter from a previous marriage to a woman he didn't love.
This film directed by Agnes Jaou who also played the voice teacher, Sylvia Millet, who is married to a third time novelist is quite a work of art not only as a female director but also as a supporting actress.
The actor who plays Etienne Cassard, the famous acclaimed French novelist, also deserves praise for his performance as the complicated, selfish, father and husband to a young bride, Karina.
The script is solid, believable, and near perfect as well as the acting performances here as well, Marilou Berry is fantastic as Lolita Cassard as is the supporting cast of characters..
The search for fame, attention, understanding and approval is the central preoccupation of the aptly titled "Look at Me." (This is one case where the translated title seems better than the originalit's certainly less pretentious.) It's a comedy-drama whose four main characters are Etienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri), a famous and egotistical novelist; Lolita (Marilou Berry), his pudgy, ignored daughter who has discovered a talent for singing; Sylvia (Agnès Jaoui), her voice teacher; and Pierre (Laurent Gréville), Sylvia's husband, an up-and-coming novelist.
The story uses the time-honored tactic of introducing the characters as they go about their lives in a busy city (in this case, Paris) then ratcheting up the tension by sending them all to an isolated country house, where they have more opportunities to irritate and influence each other.On a scene-by-scene basis, "Look at Me" works well enoughthe dialogue is sharp and the acting, especially from Berry and Jaoui, is very good.
(He's like a less complex version of the selfish writer/dad from "The Squid and the Whale.")"Look at Me" could have been much better with a more focused script and stronger ending, but there is also a good deal of wit, insight, and beautiful music to be found along the way..
In the film's other major plot strand, Lolita's voice coach, Sylvia, is also married to an author, Pierre, who has been having trouble getting published of late, until she uses Lolita to secure him an introduction to the young protégé's father.For the most part, "Look at Me" doesn't go for big flashy dramatic scenes but rather tells its story in a low-keyed way by having its characters interacting in traditionally continental social settings like restaurants, taxicabs and vacation homes in the country.
The film's other intriguing secondary character is Sylvia, the music teacher, who really seems to be the voice of conscience in the story.Despite that flaw, "Look at Me" succeeds more often than not at weaving a complex tapestry out of a variety of interesting and colorful characters.
To that end, the film features fine ensemble work by Marilou Berry, Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnes Jaoui, who also co-wrote and directed the movie..
The English translation of this film's title conveys so much of what the film is about: Look at Me. The main character Lolita wants to be noticed by her father, a famous novelist and publisher, but he treats her with indifference.
As in their earlier film "The Taste of Others," Jaoui and Bacri do an excellent job of capturing little snatches of everyday life and common human interactions, notably the little squabble in the car between Sylvia and her husband over her driving.
After thoroughly enjoying 1999's "The Taste of Others", the first writing collaboration between the husband and wife acting team of Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri, I couldn't wait for their next film.
For what it takes in 'Comme une image' to cast a compassionate look at others Bacri and Jaoui got the best parts - those smoothly cornering the movie to its end..
Truth is that she is thoroughly ignored by him in whatever she does, and this relationship will mark her attitude towards life and people.Director-writer Agnès Jaoui shines in the role of Lolita's singing teacher and the wife of a struggling writer.
Among those sucked into the vortex created by this man are: Lolita, a daughter who wants to be a classical music singer; Karine, a trophy wife; Sylvia, Lolita's voice instructor; Pierre, Sylvia's novelist husband; and Sébastian, Lolita's boyfriend.Those looking for a heavy plot or action should skip this - we drop in on the characters, get to know them, and then leave them pretty much as they were at the beginning.
Although the initial premise might look rather dramatic, the truth is that there's so much sense of humor in this movie, especially in the father's character.
"Look At Me (Comme une image)" is a sweetly wry cross between "Lovely and Amazing" and Woody Allen's "Celebrity." A two generational ensemble of obliviously self-absorbed Parisian intellectuals connected through a complicated roundelay of blended family, hangers-on, co-dependents and preening sycophants demonstrates that these types are not just found in Los Angeles and New York City.Co-writer/director Agnès Jaoui has already proved she can manage comically touching organized chaos in a script co-written and co-starring her ex, Jean-Pierre Bacri, with the marvelous "The Taste of Others (Le Goût des autres)" and she does it again here, while casting herself and he in the least flattering roles.
that get complicated by little white lies to protect each other's feelings until they become comically hypocritically committed.Marilou Berry (in a role that would probably be played in an American re-make by Sara Rue if the heart-stealing is maintained or by Nia Vardalos if they go for broader comedy -- and I doubt she'd be singing a cappella madrigals) is utterly charming as a woebegone and ignored daughter of the first marriage of a famous writer with a new younger family, with Bacri as a modern version of Moliere's "The Misanthrope." I'm not sure I've seen quite the same "meet cute" before as the adorable Keine Bouhiza falls down drunk at her feet.What would also be different from an American version is that the ensemble is almost all character actors, such that it adds irony to the guys constant girl-watching and commentary on passing women's looks.
A beautifully crafted and acted film where the director Agnes Jaoui, who incidentally plays a leading role in the film supporting and coaching, Marilou Berry as Lolita a budding singer, for me the star of the film, who has to come to terms with her father's and his immediate circle of friends individualism.As in all good films the pace is wonderful as the protagonists are slowly bought together, egos waxing and waning as they seek out what is best for themselves and to hell with everyone else.
A beautifully crafted and acted film where the director Agnes Jaoui, who incidentally plays a leading role in the film supporting and coaching, Marilou Berry as Lolita a budding singer, for me the star of the film, who has to come to terms with her father's and his immediate circle of friends individualism.As in all good films the pace is wonderful as the protagonists are slowly bought together, egos waxing and waning as they seek out what is best for themselves and to hell with everyone else.
I'm writing it up, of course; and there's something to be said for directors acting in their films, especially those that know and identify deeply with the character, especially as the focus around which others base their performance.
Not all the leads excel, but the arrogant father figure (Jean-Pierre Bacri) was played to a razor's edge precision (husband and wife team alert: a reprisal of his role in Le Goût des Autres, also by and with Jaoui).
The daughter is an irritating character, however - you just want her to make the most of herself - irritating but so true to real life.The music is absolutely beautiful, as long as you like baroque / early classical (which we do).
In Agnès Jaoui's ably written but weakly plotted comedy of manners Look at Me (Comme une image) Étienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri) is a famous French writer and publisher with a young, thin, beautiful blonde wife named Karine (Virginie Desarnauts).
His wife Sylvia -- ably played by Jaoui herself and ultimately the movie's most sympathetic and morally perceptive character -- is Lolita's singing teacher.
She puts her coat over him, and that's how they meet.My friend said Look at Me reminded him of Eric Rohmer's films because it had a lot of good French talk and not much action.
"Comme une image" might be the best French film I've ever seen.Also referred to as "Look at Me" in the United States, and is translated more closely as "Like an Image," it is the story of an aspiring opera singer who has to deal with the adversity of being overweight and having a famous father who is a really lousy parent.The thing that makes this film so good is the script and the acting.
Here if anything she underplays the cliché of the fat girl who wants to be noticed by her father and still believes that boys are interested in her for herself no matter how many times they make it obvious they just want to get next to pop (Jean-Pierre Bacri) a successful writer.
So there you have it, Bacri remains the same arrogant, unfeeling, talent, Jaoui's relationship with her husband has taken a large dent but young love is looking good.