The Taste Of Others
"Funny, I never thought it would work. He's so different from me." Agnès Jaoui, scripting with her longtime writing and performing partner, Jean-Pierre Bacri, makes a deft directorial debut with this delightful romantic journey of missed opportunities and second chances. Bacri is poignant and piercing as a gauche petit-bourgeois businessman who discovers a world of art and magic missing from his empty, self-contained existence after he watches an emotionally devastating theater performance. Equal parts buffoon and born-again romantic, he fumbles through a new world and emerges as the soul of this story. Jaoui brings a light touch and a fresh perspective to familiar situations. Behind the comic characters and wry wit is a sympathy for her lonely souls and a celebration of the painful joy of their rediscovery of the possibilities of life.--Sean Axmaker