Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Look at Me
Sony Pictures Classics


7.7

based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

The Taste of Others

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for brief language and a sexual reference

Starring Marilou Berry, Agnès Jaoui, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Laurent Grévill, Virginie Desarnauts, Keine Bouhiza, Grégoire Oestermann, and Serge Riaboukine

The story of human beings who know perfectly what they would do in someone else's place but don't do very well in their own. (Sony Pictures Classics)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama \| Foreign \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Jean-Pierre Bacri (scenario) Agnès Jaoui (scenario)
DIRECTED BY:	Agnès Jaoui
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 9, 2005 Theatrical: April 1, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	110 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	France / Italy
LANGUAGE(S):	French (with English subtitles)

Original title "Comme une Image"; Best Screenplay, 2004 Cannes Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The wry filmmaker has created an urbane society of family and friends as ridiculously pretentious and hypocritical as they are cultured, accomplished, and posh.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

An engrossing new drama from France.

100

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

A marvelous, uncommonly observant, and unexpectedly rousing group portrait.

100

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

This audience-pleaser is smart and acerbic. Jaoui has an uncanny ear - as director, co-writer and part of the inspired ensemble cast - for human foibles, self-deception, celebrity worship and female body issues.

100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

While Look at Me at times falls into familiar plotting, it never offers false hope or false characters.

100

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Brilliant, blistering account of the many ways fame deforms a star, his family and his fans.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What makes Look at Me such a deeply satisfying experience is its ability to combine insightful character portraits like this with wickedly funny situations that slyly skewer all-too-human weaknesses.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

This bonbon spiked with malice is a triumph for Jaoui, who takes witty and wounding measure of the small betrayals that leave bruises on us all.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

With a light, sometimes hilarious touch, Look at Me deflates the pretensions and self-obsessed nature of a group of wealthy Parisian literati, but its observations about the effects of fame and success and our natural desire to fan them as high as they can go, apply to anyone within range of reality-TV culture.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A witty and psychologically perceptive look at the Parisian literary scene.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

In lesser hands, all this might border on misanthropy. But Jaoui's direction, plus the note-perfect cast, manage two redeeming feats:

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The thing about a movie like this is, the characters may be French, but they're more like people I know than they could ever be in the Hollywood remake.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

A movie of biting social observation. And it masterfully avoids Manichaean simplicity.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Directed by Agnès Jaoui, who made the equally delightful "The Taste of Others," this comedy of manners with a serious purpose centers on a group of loosely connected neurotics, all working in the rarefied worlds of amateur chorales.

Variety Lisa Nesselson

Punchy dialogue, excellent thesping and a real feel for the universal tuning fork of great classical music make this a prime candidate for international arthouse play.

The New Yorker David Denby

A tender, indignant, but also very worldly movie.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The latest in a series of stiletto-sharp social comedies by the French filmmakers Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnès Jaoui.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

A witty and acute examination of friendship, ambition and betrayal in the Parisian literary world.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Look at Me marks the character's shift from being the object of attention to the subject of her own dreams.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Look at Me is on the talky side, but like Jaoui's directing debut, "The Taste of Others," it offers uniformly excellent performances and smart observations on social and family interactions.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It is for a particular audience - those who like films that concentrate on character rather than plot, and who aren't put off by subtitles.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

While Jaoui's film is interesting to watch, it dawdles enough to lose its storytelling grip.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Little in a Jaoui film is particularly original, but it's all perfectly convincing.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The film satisfies in much the same way Allen's movie-a-year comedies used to satisfy.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Jaoui directs with flow and affection, and she plays Sylvia sensitively. Bacri has the right middle-aged assortment of humors.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The French title is Comme une image ("like an image"), but Tennessee Williams's phrase "the catastrophe of success" seems more appropriate.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Smart, absorbing movie.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Look at Me is a virtuoso exercise in domestic tension - with the emphasis on "exercise."

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The multitalented Jaoui and Bacri excel on every level; her direction is efficient and unobtrusive, their script dissects the nuances of corruption by celebrity with a razor-sharp scalpel, and they deliver a pair of subtly unsparing performances.

Slate David Edelstein

This is a bleak, unresolved film, with no release. What keeps it from being a mortal bummer is the music-exquisite sacred choral works, plus Mozart.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Romy D. gave it a10:
Beautiful tough drama-comedy about the dictatorship of image and the difficulties to survive to your parents... Bacri and Jaoui besides being fantastic actors proved once again to be able with their scripts to talk poignantly about the subtle violence and traumas we tend to hide in everyday life. Their mirrors are unconventionally funny but also deeply truthful.

David K. gave it a4:
Very little actually *happens* in this movie, and while I suppose we're supposed to be drawn into the frustrations of this poor girl's life, she's less interesting than most of the folks you'd meet on a bus ride in Boston. We (at 42) were the youngest folks in the packed theater, and I'm guessing that the movie was comfortable for the audience in that nobody's heart would race out of control. Seriously, take a camcorder around your neighborhood and talk with people about their own lives... it'll have more depth than "Look at Me."

Barry B gave it an8:
Look at Me is a French film directed by Agnes Jaoui who also co-stars in the film with her off-screen husband Jean-Pierre Bacri. Both wrote the screenplay for this insightful look at the human condition told in the interesting backdrop of the French literary and arts community. The film has a number of messages and subtleties that are conveyed to the viewer easily and clearly in spite of the English titles that support the all French dialogue save for the on screen playing of “It’s a good day” sung by Peggy Lee. The film earns and gets an 80. Ms Jaoui’s acting is only superceded by her superb job of directing as the film flows along telling its story simply yet profoundly. A winner for this husband and wife team and the others in the cast whose contributions are likewise vital and significant.

David K. gave it an8:
A bit slow to start, but insightful

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page

Look at Me Sony Pictures Classics

Look at Me
Sony Pictures Classics