Daddy Dearest
Celebrity father wreaks emotional havoc in 'Look At Me'

Here's something you never see at mainstream movies—a chubby heroine. Not only chubby, but young and French. Her name is Lolita (note the literary irony), the overlooked, 20-year-old daughter of a famous novelist in Look At Me, a French ensemble drama about family, fame, and identity. The original French title, Comme Une Image, translates more or less as Like A Picture, although this family portrait most often resembles the picture of Dorian Gray.

The sophomore feature from actress-turned-filmmaker Agnes Jaoui, this contemporary story was written by Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri, both of whom also play key roles. The spider at the center of the web is Etienne Cassard (Bacri), a celebrity author who's fawned over by everyone, and whose bestselling novels are adapted into "idiot tearjerker" movies. Insulting, inattentive, and easily bored with others, Etienne is only interested in himself; his entourage includes a loyal flunky, and a new trophy wife, Karine (Virginie Desarnauts) with whom he has a second little daughter.

His first daughter is plus-size Lolita (Marilou Berry). With her own mother long out of the picture, Lolita is struggling to find herself; having dabbled unsuccessfully in acting, she's now training to be a classical singer. Although Etienne smarmily calls her "my big girl," she's hardly a blip on his radar screen. He can't be bothered to listen to the vocal tape she gives him, and thinks of her mainly as a live-in babysitter. When the family sweeps off to a private party at a club after a movie premiere, Lolita is the one left behind at the door, unable to convince the bouncer she's anyone important. More disheartening are the shopping trips she's required to take with step-mom Karine (the same age as Lolita), who's obsessed with maintaining her own willowy figure because she believes she has nothing else to offer.

Into this dysfunctional family dynamic wanders Sylvia (played by director Jaoui), Lolita's voice teacher, who is married to struggling writer Pierre (Laurent Greville). Sylvia agrees to coach an amateur vocal ensemble to which Lolita belongs hoping to meet Lolita's famous dad. (The finale is a lovely choral performance inside an ancient church in the French countryside.) When Pierre's new book comes out to great reviews, he and Sylvia are both absorbed into Etienne's powerful orbit. So too is Sébastien (Keine Bouhiza), a chance acquaintance tagging along in Lolita's wake.

There's a lot of interesting stuff going on here: women and self-image, the quest for identity, the abuse of emotional power. And of course the wages of celebrity, including the Faustian subplot about what newly-hot Pierre is willing to sacrifice for Etienne-style fame—his loyal but stodgy old publisher, his dignity (prostituting himself to appear on a sequin-infested, whiz-bang celebrity chat show), and, ultimately, the respect of his wife.

Much of Look At Me is an object lesson on how not to behave. But while all the themes are in place, the fleeting black comedy is never incisive enough, nor the characters compelling enough to draw the viewer in. Director Jaoui is very skilled at suggesting disconnect (like Lolita's ever-present cell phone, with which she isolates herself from those around her in the immediate present), but less able to convey depth of feeling in her characters. She doesn't bother to sketch in Pierre's crisis of conscience, only the results of his actions. Much as we'd like to root for Lolita, her self-dramatizing cluelessness puts us off; when she ought to reach a genuine emotional epiphany—when she finally realizes she's been treating Sébastien as dismissively as her father treats her—Jaoui throws the moment away on meaningless action without getting any closer to Lolita's psyche. And there's very little motivation for Sébastien's continuing devotion.

If the intent is to show how the selfishness of bad apple Etienne poisons the whole orchard, then the film succeeds. But characters who mean so little to themselves, or each other, don't mean much to the audience either.

LOOK AT ME With Marilou Berry, Jean-Pierre Bacri, and Agnes Jaoui. Written by Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri. Directed by Agnes Jaoui. A Sony Classics release. Rated (PG-13) 107 minutes. In French with English subtitles. (**1/2)
Review published in Good Times, May 26, 2005