If not quite as complete and impressively deft as writer/director/actress Agnès Jaoui and co-writer/actor Jean-Pierre Bacri’s previous film, 2001’s The Taste of Others, their latest is just as precise and devilishly erudite in the most low-key manner. The plot concerns Lolita (Marilou Berry), a chubby 20-something girl taking vocal training in her scattered goal to become an actress or model or a singer or something, but more often than not defined by her identity as the daughter of famous writer and publisher Étienne Cassard (Bacri). The product of Cassard’s first marriage, Lolita is by all means ignored by her father, who seemingly prefers his young and beautiful second wife (who looks to be nearly Lolita’s age) and their small daughter. Looking for affection elsewhere, Lolita distractedly juggles a couple of male relationships while focusing on getting personal attention from her vocal trainer Sylvia (Jaoui), whose husband is a frustrated, struggling writer, Pierre (Laurent Grévill). When the writer hits it big he swings into Cassard’s orbit but the collision of the two social groups does not change much for anyone. Pierre no longer needs his wife’s assurances, but instead of finally focusing on her he instead becomes distant and spurs dissatisfaction Sylvia to dissatisfaction. Fixated on her failed attempts to garner her father’s interest and get him to notice her singing, Lolita treats a friend and potential loved one as a receptacle for her grief and woe rather than as a person. Cassard himself is not invulnerable to similar problems; his introversion has prevented him from writing a meaningful word in six months and has nearly estranged his wife and child, both of whom disinterest him.

Exquisitely realized by the actors despite the writing's relatively simple psychology, each character in Look at Me is intensively obsessed with their own shortcomings and social neglect. The literal translation of the film’s title—and the title of Pierre’s successful book—is Like an Image, and reflects the film’s subtle, perceptive jabs at the importance of the function of art in life, and more importantly of public labels, be they familial (daughter of, friends with, etc.) or professional (author, singer, actor) and how these thin descriptions of a person usually serve as enough meaning for those around them, as well as dictating the person’s behavior. The gradual heroes in Jaoui’s film—Lolita, her erstwhile boyfriend, and Sylvia—struggle with the profound, though modest, difficulty to transcend the spiraling self-interest in their own acute problems and instead take interest in others and be there for them in mutual, co-dependent relationships. Bacri and Jaoui cannot be commended enough for taking unassuming stories, writing them with quiet insight, and filling them with nuanced, sly performances. The drama progresses smoothly, without hurry: sidelong looks, the cruelty and sadness (and humor) contained in everyday converse, and faces pressed by egotism and confused with hints of altruism all flow simply, effortlessly through the work. Two for two, the results of these filmmakers are humorous, wonderful kind of adult dramas. Their films’ occasional comparisons to those of Woody Allen, and their multifaceted talents beg the desire to see them tackle more cinematically ambitious projects, which there is no doubt they could carry off with flying (though characteristically subdued) colors.