Good concept, poorly executed.

A Brilliant Conflict

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

What France does for the film industry worldwide is what American directors should do in creating memorable characters, story lines, and plots without all the special effects. 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. His daughter, Lolita, wants to be a classic singer more in the style of Rene Fleming than Britney Spears. She sings opera and can hit the high notes. She is more alike her father than different. She has a low self-esteem, plump, and lacks the self-confidence that she needs to become a successful singer. She is the connection who brings Sylvia's husband, Pierre to her father who can help him rise in the writing field. 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. I also liked how it has a subtly feminist theme by the end. But as a whole, the movie is too diffuse, with several characters that remain underdeveloped. It tries to set up two parallel stories—the ways that both Lolita and Pierre try to get Etienne's attention—but the trouble is that Lolita's quest is the more engaging one. The movie also stacks the deck against Lolita, with Etienne behaving more callously toward her than is sometimes believable. (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.

I really liked the movie I thought it was cute and funny I also think it is amazing that in any country the love life of a plus size girl is always so short lived LOL well you should really watch this movie if you like for the underdog to end up on top! The acting done in this film is superb and the story line is great it's kind of a remake of baby cakes starring Ricki Lake I really don't have anymore to say I'm now just writing to fill up the 10 lines I wish they could remake this but release it in theater . . . The singing in the film was awesome I wish I could sing like that I LOVE THIS FILM YOU SHOULD RENT THIS ONE I LOVE THIS FILM RENT THIS

When recording Zep II, the young Jimmy Page was experimenting with different recording methods; one technique he used on Whole Lotta Love was to mike the guitar amp from a distance rather than up close as is the norm. You've got to turn the amp up louder to get the same levels, but he also noticed you get a fatter, fuller sound. In like manner, though this will be somewhat discounted by the technical gaps in my memory, I wonder if criticism and reviews come out different if they're written a week or more after the original viewing/experience. Certainly, the peaks and valleys of impressions should be more defined; whatever's worth truly remembering should still be there and the rest just dribbled away. Which of course is detrimental to those inclined to loving fine detail. But something I'm starting to think more and more is that the detail is integral to mood and not always consciously absorbed/observed; and that mood is essential to how we remember the bigger bits and streams of culture. Which of course begs the question of a bad initial mood dampening the effect of a work which might (in other circumstances) transcend petty predispositions; or which demands that reviewers in all walks of write be even, balanced and emotionally calm and consistent people, which is an insulting waste of speculation when your competition's an autocue hound like Richard Wilkins. Ultimately, the purpose and value of art is to engage. And in the best works, to generate an experience that stays with you. An historical trace of artistic stayers would be pretty similar to the accepted canon of greatness and talent. Just as there's a lot to be said about critical passion and the heat of thought's immediacy in getting a review down, there's also significant value in considering works from a distance, both temporal and spatial and or contextual. So then. I mean to talk about Agnès Jaoui's film. I saw it almost two weeks ago. Jaoui is a rare specimen of French female actor-directors: she isn't as intense as Isabel Huppert but is more attractive, acting-wise. Hers is a clear talent immediately readable whilst retaining a distinct femininity; youthful, subtle in its cares, natural in its movements. It's not a talent measured by intensity but thoughtful grace and naturalism in the moment. 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. (Jaoui has an amazing vocal talent; her role is customised to suit). But it's a mature form of charming which I found wholly agreeable. At times bristling with crisp wit and well-edited comedy, the film is a great character vehicle. 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 father whose reputation and fame cause others to dance with nimble adulation and sycophantry. The daughter desperate for the smallest scrap of recognition in the face of a rejection of the profoundest regularity. The house in the country where it all unfurls; relationships unwinding and reintegrating into other intrigues; the nagging undercurrents of failure and ambition's insecurity (backdropped by sheer parental and unspoken jealousy). Emotionally even and balanced by pace, you almost completely lose the sense of a mediated, constructed experience. I want that more and more: to lose the sense of experiencing cinema, to immerse myself. And as always with French films, it's mostly about writers — my theory being that the only place one really sees writers represented is on screen (them paper bios and interviews just don't cut it in terms of representative art and power). Every second or third French film of late has involved or resolved a particular question of writers, or, more generally, auteur's. Which is why it's high time to make a nicely bland doco-film about the real slog and visual ennui of the writing process. The little making-of doco on the DVD was also illuminating, one of the better ones yet. To see shots made and developed under the most natural, gentle and contributive atmosphere had me thinking of Eastwood. None of that poncy French faux-intellectual storm und drang, no mealy theoretic or abstractions; just plain, simple drama. The work of precision built into every scene. The painting of grass to match the season. The in-car shot whose punctuation is crucial. The nearness of love and resentment. The small and intrusive rudeness of the world (mobiles, taxi drivers). The shifts of mood and music (from Schubert to TuPac). The director as guide, conduit and fine-tuner. Proof that subtlety behind the screen (backed by natural talent) equates with subtlety and grace on screen. rino breebaart