Look at Me 2004

An insecure young Parisian opera singer struggles to escape the shadow of her superstar novelist father, in this sharply observed drama of celebrity and its casualties from the makers of The Taste of Others. Funny and moving, urbane and yet remarkably pungent, this is contemporary French cinema at its best. 

“In this wonderful new film by the team of Agnès Jaoui (who acts, writes, and directs) and Jean-Pierre Bacri (who acts and writes), Bacri is a Parisian big-shot publisher and writer, and young Marilou Berri is his grievously overweight and unloved daughter, who can’t get past a disco bouncer but attains something like happiness when she sings Handel and Mozart with her choral group. Around this aggravated father-daughter vacuum, Jaoui and Bacri assemble the elements of the Parisian publishing and music worlds, and their theme is egocentricity – the unconscious selfishness that cuts people off even from those they are closest to. Bacri’s big cheese, a monster of self-centeredness, is the villain of the piece, but the condition is shown to be universal. A tender, indignant, but also very worldly movie.” — David Denby, New Yorker 

“Absolutely riveting, like a great novel. Jaoui has crafted a drama whose brilliant wit, pathos, and insight all rise organically out of characters and relationships that couldn’t be more credible or intriguing. The rest of 2005 will have to spring some mighty big surprises for Look at Me to get elbowed off year-end best lists – or mine, at least.” — Dennis Harvey, San Francisco Bay Guardian