Look at Me

A famous novelist (Jean-Pierre Bacri, who co-wrote with director Agnès Jaoui) and his insecure, ugly-duckling daughter (Marilou Berry) spend their lives making everyone they know utterly miserable—he with his arrogant egotism and casual cruelty, and she with her seething resentment, knowing that nothing she does will ever be good enough to please him. Among those caught in the crossfire are the writer’s sweet-tempered second wife (Virginie Desarnauts), the daughter’s voice teacher (director Jaoui) and the teacher’s struggling-writer husband (Laurent Grévill). Jaoui and Bacri’s script is incisively witty, like Woody Allen without the one-liners, and Jaoui’s sympathetic direction draws sensitive performances from everyone. Even Bacri’s character, wholly unsympathetic, gets the benefit of his humanity.