Product Details

• Format: NTSC
• Language: French
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Run Time: 111 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005JNQD
• For more information about "Look at Me" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Only the French dare to make movies about such unlikeable people, and only the French can make you like them anyway. Look at Me is a cornucopia of prickly personalities, starting with Lolita (Marilou Berry), an aspiring singer who hates everyone who pays attention to her because of her famous father and assumes that no one would pay attention to her for any other reason. It's not surprising, because her father Etienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri, The Housekeeper), an acclaimed writer, surrounds himself with people who want something from him--including a less famous writer (Laurent Grevill, I Can't Sleep) who finds success thanks to Etienne, and whose wife (writer/director Agnes Jaoui, The Taste of Others) happens to be Lolita's music teacher. Look at Me captures the little ways that fame warps everything around it; Etienne gets away with treating everyone terribly because of his literary stature, to which desire and resentment fasten like barnacles. But it's not just a satire--gradually, through an accumulation of brief glimpses and offhand remarks, these abrasive characters become increasingly vivid and genuine. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker

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. In French. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What price glory?, August 19, 2005

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Look at Me (DVD)

COMME UNE IMAGE (LOOK AT ME) is a tough little film that practically defies the viewer to love it. Rated as a comedy, it has few chuckles of the usual kind, but the smart tidy script delivers more of the Reformation-type comedy - wit with a bite. Writer/director and star Agnès Jaoui (her co-author is her ex-husband Jean-Pierre Bacri who also stars) is obviously an intelligent, observant, caustic chronicler of contemporary French society who dotes on celebrities at the expense of their own self-respect. Not a single character in this film is likeable, but each one is fascinatingly interesting and a bit warped. Their interaction provides the venom that in Jaoui's hands raises the bar on the range of comedy.

Étienne Cassard (Jean-Pierre Bacri) is a famous writer whose latest novel has been 'transformed' into a schmaltzy film about which he is loathsomely embarrassed. He is caustic, acerbic, and emotionally negligent of both his grown obese daughter Lolita (Marilou Berry), who devotes her resentful life in an attempt to being a famous concert singer, and to his new wife Karine (Virginie Desarnauts) and little daughter. Lolita's music coach is Sylvia (Agnès Jaoui) whose demands on her students reflect her frustrated life being married to an unknown author Pierre (Laurent Grévill). Odd paths cross and it is through Lolita's influence as the daughter of a famous writer Étienne that Sylvia arranges for Pierre to join forces with Étienne and gain acceptance and popularity, but the consequences include Sylvia's increased tutelage for Lolita and her group of fellow madrigal singers.

Lolita comes the closest to being a character about whom we care. She is distraught about her weight, her distant father, her stepmother and stepsister, her inability to gain the affection for the boy of her dreams, her struggle to become a significant performer - all of which prevents her from recognizing the man who could salvage it all - Sébastien (Keine Bouhiza) who literally falls at her feet!

All of these characters interact in complex and at times trying ways, ever cognizant of the 'authority of celebrity' and the results of these engagements form the body of the film. The acting is on a high level, the dialogue is crisp and smart, and the musical background for this mélange is a gorgeous mixture of classical music ranging from Buxtehude through Schubert ('An die Musik' plays a big role!) and many others. This 'comedy' is more intellectual than entertaining, but if wit and elegance of acting brings you joy, then this is a film to see. In French with subtitles at a long 2 hours! Grady Harp, August 05

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars engrossing family drama, September 12, 2006

By 

Roland E. Zwick (Valencia, Ca USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Look at Me (DVD)

"Look at Me" is a talky but generally interesting French drama about a teenage girl's attempt to earn the love and recognition of her strangely distant father. Lolita is an overweight, aspiring singer who has lived in the shadow of her parent, a self-absorbed but successful novelist, all her life. Even though Etienne seems to care for his very young second wife and five-year-old daughter, he appears to have little interest in Lolita. Indeed, when he isn't completely ignoring her, in public or in private, he is wounding her with deprecating comments about her talent and weight. In the film's other major plot strand, Lolita's voice coach, Sylvia, is also married to an author, Pierre, who has been having trouble getting published of late, until she uses Lolita to secure him an introduction to the young protégé's father.

For the most part, "Look at Me" doesn't go for big flashy dramatic scenes but rather tells its story in a low-keyed way by having its characters interacting in traditionally continental social settings like restaurants, taxicabs and vacation homes in the country. Virtually all the characters suffer from some form of unhappiness or depression caused by their inability to create the lives they want. Lolita spends most of her time brooding over the fact that she can't get her father to acknowledge her existence, let alone support her in her endeavors. One of Lolita's biggest complaints is that people - and that includes boys - tend to befriend her solely as a means of "getting to" her famous father. Even her music teacher uses her for that purpose (though this is one time when Lolita seems unaware of it). So paranoid has Lolita become on this score that she even keeps at arm's length a young man who is obviously genuinely interested in having a relationship with her. The two authors, to varying degrees, have feelings of inadequacy and frustration brought on by either self-doubt about their talent or the fear that have begun to "dry up" as a writer.

For the most part, this is a compelling tale about people who feed off one another and compromise their values to get what they want. Etienne is, in many ways, the most interesting character because he seems genuinely unaware of the callous way he treats others, but he is also the most frustrating in that some of his most boorish actions in regards to his daughter don't always ring totally true. For instance, it is highly unlikely that even he would get up and leave in the middle of his daughter's concert performance to take a stroll outside, then completely ignore her at a party he throws for her afterwards. Too often, we feel as if he is being mean and thoughtless more as a plot device than as a genuine reflection of his character. The film's other intriguing secondary character is Sylvia, the music teacher, who really seems to be the voice of conscience in the story.

Despite that flaw, "Look at Me" succeeds more often than not at weaving a complex tapestry out of a variety of interesting and colorful characters. To that end, the film features fine ensemble work by Marilou Berry, Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnes Jaoui, who also co-wrote and directed the movie.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Triple Triumph, March 12, 2007

By 

Galina (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Look at Me (DVD)

The breath of fresh air - refined, funny, ironic, in the best traditions of the Chekhov's plays, this movie is a triple triumph for its writer/director/star Agnes Jaoui. "Look at me" is the story of 20 years old Lolita (rarely a name mismatches a girl so much. Lolita is a pudgy young woman with a very low self-esteem even though she's got a beautiful voice and passion for singing) who desperately craves her father's attention. Ironically, her father, one of the most famous writers in France, known for his deep, observant and subtle novels is an arrogant, self-centered, and self-involved man who hardly acknowledges Lolita - just to criticize her. He never finds time to listen to the tape Lolita made especially for him in hope to get his interest and approval. The beauty of the script and the movie is that Agnes Jaoui does not use only black or white colors to paint her characters. They turn with their different facets to the viewers and the film itself is a precious gem. The acting is superb by everyone. As a bonus treat, we will hear some of the most beautiful music every written, including the pieces by Monteverdi and Handel.

9/10