Summary
The film is another example of Assayas's sophisticated ability to combine cinema of ideas and sentiment, intellectual debate and human density, society and individuals, work and private life with people who think, work, bond, feel and love, in a sort of of modern luxury vaudeville and with a great cast.
Review
When I finished seeing this film and read that it was written and directed by Olivier Assayas, I said to myself, of course! Since the family resemblance with the subsequent Irma Vep series and other films (and the echoes of Woody Allen and Rohmer) was undeniable.
The story is structured around two couples: Alain, the editor of a prestigious publishing house (Guillaume Canet), his wife Selena, an actress who has gained notoriety starring in a police series (Juliette Binoche), Léonard (Vincent Macaigne), a mid-level writer success characterized by his self-referentiality (from which the English title of the film, Non-Fiction, derives) and his partner Valérie, assistant and adviser to a left-wing politician (Nora Hamzawi). Of two couples and the lovers of some of its members in a succession of professional and social meetings, couple talks and some media incursions.
In the meetings, the characters talk a lot (as in any good French film) and reflect and debate on the state of things in the publishing industry and its consumption: the struggles between the paper book, the electronic book and the audiobooks, since that the publisher proposes a total transition from its paper catalog to the electronic one (theme that also appears in the comedy Amor y Anarquía), the current role of the writer, the relationship between the characters and the personal life of an author. The role of blogs and Twitter, the circulation and nature of news, algorithms also appear. Post-truth and the principle of authority. Nor are politics and the role of politicians left out. These exchanges are juicy (for some they will not be new), although I would only criticize that some characters, due to their role, should not express ignorance about some of the terms and concepts enunciated and they do so out of a certain didacticism towards the viewer.
But the main characters are far from being mere excuses or instruments for this valuable exchange of ideas. When they end up alone with their partners or their lovers, after each one of those meetings and all that social and work-related intellectual pomp slips away and vanishes, all their simple or complex humanity is exposed (the double lives, Double vies in the plural of the original title in French), in those simple and intimate talks, where silences and looks become relevant, moments that increasingly connect us with the characters and love them more and more, from the hands of these great actors and actresses, where the endearing and neurotic Léonard stands out from that great actor who is Vincent Macaigne (The Things We Say, The Things We Do) and the amazing naturalness of Valérie de Nora Hamzawi's Valérie, actor and actress who will not reappear in the series Irma Vep for nothing from the same director.
The film is another example of Assayas's sophisticated ability to combine cinema of ideas and sentiment, intellectual debate and human density, society and individuals, work and private life with people who think, work, bond, feel and love, in a sort of of modern luxury vaudeville and with a great cast.
Review
When I finished seeing this film and read that it was written and directed by Olivier Assayas, I said to myself, of course! Since the family resemblance with the subsequent Irma Vep series and other films (and the echoes of Woody Allen and Rohmer) was undeniable.
The story is structured around two couples: Alain, the editor of a prestigious publishing house (Guillaume Canet), his wife Selena, an actress who has gained notoriety starring in a police series (Juliette Binoche), Léonard (Vincent Macaigne), a mid-level writer success characterized by his self-referentiality (from which the English title of the film, Non-Fiction, derives) and his partner Valérie, assistant and adviser to a left-wing politician (Nora Hamzawi). Of two couples and the lovers of some of its members in a succession of professional and social meetings, couple talks and some media incursions.
In the meetings, the characters talk a lot (as in any good French film) and reflect and debate on the state of things in the publishing industry and its consumption: the struggles between the paper book, the electronic book and the audiobooks, since that the publisher proposes a total transition from its paper catalog to the electronic one (theme that also appears in the comedy Amor y Anarquía), the current role of the writer, the relationship between the characters and the personal life of an author. The role of blogs and Twitter, the circulation and nature of news, algorithms also appear. Post-truth and the principle of authority. Nor are politics and the role of politicians left out. These exchanges are juicy (for some they will not be new), although I would only criticize that some characters, due to their role, should not express ignorance about some of the terms and concepts enunciated and they do so out of a certain didacticism towards the viewer.
But the main characters are far from being mere excuses or instruments for this valuable exchange of ideas. When they end up alone with their partners or their lovers, after each one of those meetings and all that social and work-related intellectual pomp slips away and vanishes, all their simple or complex humanity is exposed (the double lives, Double vies in the plural of the original title in French), in those simple and intimate talks, where silences and looks become relevant, moments that increasingly connect us with the characters and love them more and more, from the hands of these great actors and actresses, where the endearing and neurotic Léonard stands out from that great actor who is Vincent Macaigne (The Things We Say, The Things We Do) and the amazing naturalness of Valérie de Nora Hamzawi's Valérie, actor and actress who will not reappear in the series Irma Vep for nothing from the same director.