Twenty-year-old Lolita (Marilou Berry) wants to be a classical singer, to be slim and, most of all, she wants to win the approval of her father, Etienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri). A successful writer, Etienne has been fêted and fawned over for most of his adult life, to the extent that he no longer needs to be pleasant to those around him. His daughter is a disappointment to him because she’s dumpy, neurotic and so desperately needs his affection. Lolita can’t accept that any friendship she forms doesn’t have its roots in her father’s celebrity. Into this maelstrom of repressed tensions come Lolita’s singing teacher (Agnès Jaoui, who directed and co-wrote with Bacri), her writer husband and Sébastien, who falls for Lolita, only to discover that she can be as difficult as her father. Jaoui (The Taste Of Others) is not only a fine actress but clearly a very able ringmaster for this circus of monstrous egos and corrupted self-image. French cinema at its most sophisticated and rewarding.
Twenty-year-old Lolita (Marilou Berry) wants to be a classical singer, to be slim and, most of all, she wants to win the approval of her father, Etienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri). A successful writer, Etienne has been fêted and fawned over for most of his adult life, to the extent that he no longer needs to be pleasant to those around him. His daughter is a disappointment to him because she’s dumpy, neurotic and so desperately needs his affection. Lolita can’t accept that any friendship she forms doesn’t have its roots in her father’s celebrity. Into this maelstrom of repressed tensions come Lolita’s singing teacher (Agnès Jaoui, who directed and co-wrote with Bacri), her writer husband and Sébastien, who falls for Lolita, only to discover that she can be as difficult as her father. Jaoui (The Taste Of Others) is not only a fine actress but clearly a very able ringmaster for this circus of monstrous egos and corrupted self-image. French cinema at its most sophisticated and rewarding.
