The Taste of Others (2001)

A rich, boorish, married businessman (Jean-Pierre Bacri), smitten by a refined local actress (Anne Alvaro), wanders from the confines of his chintz-covered domestic routine to invade her bohemian world in Agnes Jaoui's astute romantic comedy The Taste of Others, France's official Oscar submission. And the artiste is far from flattered. From this collision of tastes, Jaoui creates a wonderful scenario in which all kinds of artistes and bourgeoisie collide and reassess what they want out of life.

Jaoui (who cowrote the screenplay with her companion, Bacri) handles her crowd of vivid characters so naturally, and shoots her scenes so unobtrusively, that the diagrammatic cleverness of the plot never overwhelms the intelligence of the observations. Then again, she also plays one of those characters, a free-spirited bartender involved with the businessman's tradition-minded bodyguard (Gerard Lanvin). By the end, we know and admire these strong-willed people, and we're heartened that although they can't always get what they want, they find sometimes, to their surprise, that they get what they need. A-

You Might Also Like

• Movie Review The Taste of Others (Feb 09, 2001) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
• Reel World J. Lo and Ricky Martin may update ''Viva Las Vegas'' (Feb 09, 2001) | Rebecca Ascher-Walsh
• Movie Review The Housekeeper (Jul 11, 2003) | Owen Gleiberman
• New Releases UN AIR DE FAMILLE (1998) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
• DVD Review Six in Paris (Oct 21, 2008) | Adam Markovitz
• Movie Review I Served the King of England (Aug 29, 2008) | Lisa Schwarzbaum