Film Reviews

Look At Me

• Rating:
• Director: Agnes Jaoui
• Starring: Agnes Jaoui
• Details: Fra/ 110 mins/ (12A).

One would suspect that Look at Me is unlikely to be on the must-see list of George W. Bush, such is its ardent depiction of France as the cultural and intellectual leaders of Old Europe. It's in this world that the slightly overweight, shy singing Lolita (Marilou Berry) has been brought up in, as her father; Etienne Gassard (Jean-Pierre Bacri) is a wildly famous novelist. Worshipping him and despising him at the same time - it's a French thing - Lolita believes that people are only interested in her because of who her father is, despite the fact that Etienne rarely acknowledges her presence anyway, preferring to spend his time with his young wife and daughter. After one of Lolita's vocal teachers (Jaoui) uses her student to advance her own ambitions, things slide into uncharted territory for all of the protagonists...
Though Look at Me is certainly not short when it comes to vividly etched characters, the narrative moves at a vaguely sluggish pace, often sacrificing narrative fluency in favour of making another point on the conundrum that our heroine (of sorts) finds herself in. A subtle actress, Jaoui sometimes doesn't convey the same delicacy when it comes to the narrative's trajectory, and the film, while honourable, staggers a little. But the characters are so richly drawn here that Look at Me is worth it.

Review by Garreth Murphy