Film Reviews

My Wife is an Actress

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring:
• Details:

Unconvincing French romantic comedy, which attempts to make light of celebrity culture from first-hand experience. The director plays Yvan, a sportswriter who is married to a famous Parisian actress called Charlotte (Attal's real life partner and the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg). Constantly asked about his wife and her occupation, Ivan finds himself wondering whether she's playing away from home. When she goes off to England to shoot a feature with a renowned ladies man (as played by the regal Stamp), Yvan becomes convinced that an extra martial affair is inevitable.
Despite an interesting sounding premise, My Wife is an Actress is an overcooked shambles, a movie which is inspired by the ramblings of Woody Allen but is missing the same insight or humour. Indeed, throughout Attal comes across as a cheap, knock off imitation of the Woodmeister and his attempts to blur the line between fantasy and reality, the decision to use his and Gainsbourg's real Christian names in the film being chief among them, are unimaginative at best. The whole movie lacks drive and palpable feeling and the finale is unsatisfactory. Give it a miss.

Review by Garreth Murphy