Non-Fiction

Non-Fiction is a film I would expect Woody Allen to write and direct. Hopefully he picks up rights to a remake, should there ever be one. This borderline esoteric and most certainly self-important film from Olivier Assayas is without the witty-worded dialogue, psychologically layered characters and cleverly thought-out and executed twists that we can often rely upon Woody Allen to produce. Instead, Assayas heavily occupies his far from engaging film with impenetrable dialogue and self-indulgent characters.

One of those series-of-conversations films that’s a whole genre of French cinema in and of itself, it follows the hypocritical lives of people complaining about their significant others cheating on them while they cheat on their significant others. (The question then, is if revenge is why they’re cheating in the first place?) Why the producers thought that Non-fiction would be a better title for English-language audiences is a mystery. The original Double Lives is more apt, or perhaps one of the jokes of the film, “Auto-fiction”. The acting is terrific with a top-notch cast.

Somehow, a movie that contains several scenes of French artists, actors, writers, and publishers, sitting around a room eating and drinking wine, discussing the future of the literary world did NOT come off as pretentious. The title is a misnomer, as Léonard's (Vincent Macaigne) books are clearly autobiographical, as much as he tries to deny it — he refers to his work as "autofiction," a term I will be stealing. These Parisians, as the stereotypes go, can't seem to keep it in their pants, and are all cheating on their significant others (sometimes with each other's significant others), except for Valérie (Nora Hamzawi), who is cold and unlikeable at first, but by the end is the most endearing character. Valérie also has the chillest reaction to being told she has been cheated on that has ever made its way on screen. This definitely is not the film for everyone, and some of the business conversations concerning hard copies and e-books and the future of publishing seemed a bit dated, like they were having a conversation for 2015 in 2019. I'd like to see a sequel if only to see whether Selena (Juliette Binoche) actually kills Léonard, who is back on his bullshit.

Congrats to the writer, director and actors. They were so good that I did not realize this was a bad movie until it was over. Every French stereotype is confirmed here. They love to eat, drink, talk, talk, talk and have affairs. And all of this with no emotion. And not a single laugh. Uggh, a well-paced story about nothing.

Dobles vidas [2019]

I found 'Non-Fiction' insufferable, unfunny, and a near total bore. The performances aren't bad and that's the only reason this film gets the score that it does. What does one learn from Olivier Assayas' latest? The filmmaker needs to make bolder decisions and maybe cast someone more believable in the role of the guy who is overweight, bald, depressed, frumpy and just overall miserable in a role where he has a beautiful powerful wife and a hot actress girlfriend. Couldn't buy it and it took me out of the movie. The film just doesn't work unless except in it's own self-importance. Final Score: 4.0/10

Non-Fiction is a witty yet wordy French comedic drama. All of the acting is great. The ensemble, led by Juliette Binoche, all delivered solid performances. The best part of the film is writer/director Oliver Assayas’ script. The dialogue is very engaging. The film is basically just a bunch of conversations that tackle ideas such as modern technology and love affairs. But the way the film is written stops you from being bored. However, the film does get a bit too wordy at times. Also, there are some pacing issues. Still, this is engaging material nevertheless. Overall. Assayas has crafted an entertaining film with interesting ideas.

Pues... tambièn esperaba màs...

Alain is a publisher. He's married to Selena (Juliette Binoche), an actress in a cop show. Leonard is a schlumpy author who's long overdue for a haircut. He's married to Valerie, an earnest assistant to a political candidate. Alain has published several of Leonard's books and the two couples are nominally friends. Near the start of the film, Alain tells Leonard (in a weaselly sort of way) that he's taking a pass on his latest work, a thinly veiled semi-autobiographical novel purporting to be fiction. In recounting the meeting to Selena later, it becomes clear that his decision was based less on the content of Leonard's book and more on his growing disdain for Leonard himself. In case you didn't guess by the names ("Leonard" and "Valerie" actually have little accent marks that I'm too lazy to deal with), this is a French movie. And being a French movie, almost everyone in the whole damn film is having an affair and maybe half of them smoke. They get together with their friends and talk and talk, never just shooting the breeze, but always about highbrow subjects about which everyone has really strong opinions. Their favorite topic is the effect the digital age has had upon printed books and writing in general, but they also debate whether it's permissible to use your real-life experiences with other people in your fiction and whether trying to win an election makes a politician inherently selfish. I am of course paraphrasing. To say that this movie is talky is an understatement. Given that I don't speak French, I guess for me it was very "readie", or perhaps "writey" is the better analogy. I did my best to keep up, but in reality, even if everyone was speaking English, I would have still been struggling. I can't imagine being at one of these dinner parties. I envision myself saying "wait…" a lot and asking for clarification and then eventually giving up and trying to change the subject to a personal story, like the time (yesterday after the movie) that I got half-drenched (my left half) with dirty puddle water by a passing off-duty ambulance while walking home from the theater and wondered whether the driver did it on purpose and possibly even caught it on camera for the amusement of everyone back at the station. But yah, that thing about whether tweets and blogs are the equivalent of the writing of some ancient guy I never heard of, that's interesting too. For me, the best part about this movie, and virtually every French movie, is that I'm fascinated by the French way of life, at least as depicted on film, where almost everyone seems to be wealthy and have country houses and tons of friends that they get together with all the time to eat and drink and talk themselves silly. While one of the characters is launching into a speech about "blah blah blah digital media", I'm focusing on how half of the people in the room are wearing scarves and just how would you go about tying a scarf that particular way anyway? And look, instead of serving burgers or chicken at their barbecue, they've grilled entire fishes and veggies…veggies I don't even recognize. And isn't it lucky how no matter how crowded a cafe is, they always manage to find one little table in the middle of the room. I wonder, are Parisian cafes always so lively? Maybe I should go to Paris. If I went to Paris, would I be able to find the empty table? No, I'd probably just walk out of the café without even trying. French people are much more confident than me. Probably because of their scarves. I'm also intrigued by the relationships French movie characters have with their children. Alain and Selena have a son maybe 5 or 6 years old. We see him briefly exactly twice and Alain inquires as to his whereabouts one other time (Selena's mom took him to an amusement park). On both of the boy's token appearances, once accompanied by a nanny, Alain launches into an exaggerated bout of giggle-inducing horseplay, whisking the tyke into the air and carrying him upside-down by his feet, while Selena runs in for a big hug as if greeting a long lost friend. Thirty seconds later, parenting duties attended to and the child dispatched to what I can only assume is a tastefully-decorated nursery, Alain and Selena resume their child-free existence of careers, affairs, cafes, dinner parties, and discussing the fate of civilization in the world of e-readers. I was surprised to see that this film is classified as a comedy (along with a drama and a romance). I did emit a small chuckle once at Selena's directness in dumping a lover, but save for one audience member who seemed to laugh every time Leonard appeared on screen, once a loud chewer behind me finally finished his popcorn, the theater was pin-drop quiet. (Whenever a movie has a lone laugher, I always assume he's high. (Yes, I said "he". Lone laughers are almost always male.)) There is one attempt at humor or at least self-referential shenanigans that happens near the end of the film. Leonard asks which celebrity should be hired to record the audiobook version of his new novel and Selena replies "Juliette Binoche". Surprisingly, this line got no audible response from the audience whatsoever. No laughs, no groans, no walking out en masse. I wondered if I was the only one who got it or if perhaps everyone else was asleep by then. Of course, I was silent also, but I do most of my reacting in my head, and in this case my head was disappointedly shaking. Back in the day when I used to go to two movies a week and felt compelled to see every single well-reviewed film ever released, I would have been more prone to recommend something like this. But now that I've become a much more casual moviegoer, comfortable with the notion that life will go on if I take a pass on movies that I probably won't like so much as appreciate, I realize that virtually no one I know would be likely to come out of this movie raving about it. It was something to do on a rainy afternoon, which is all I was really looking for. Could've done without getting drenched by an ambulance on the way home, but one can't have everything.

What meat to chew on in this film! Also quite funny- very realistic characters and the acting was superb.