The Taste of Others

A provincial businessman with no feeling for art is dragged to a play by his wife and falls for the woman on stage. Around him are his driver, his bodyguard, a barmaid and a circle of actors, and the film watches these people judge each other's taste. It is not interested in love. It is interested in cultural class: what you like functions here as an identity card, and the characters look down on each other precisely because of it. The film's hardness lies in showing the cultured side to be every bit as narrow as the other. The form is ensemble comedy: several stories advance in parallel, the scenes are short, and the jokes come out of observed behaviour. Agnès Jaoui directed and co-wrote with Jean-Pierre Bacri, one of the best-known writing and acting partnerships in French cinema. The film took nine nominations at the 26th César Awards and won four: Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor for Gérard Lanvin and Best Supporting Actress for Anne Alvaro. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and drew four million admissions in France. Who it is for: viewers who like dialogue-driven French comedy and social observation. Who it is not for: anyone who wants a fast-moving story. The film is deliberately slow, and most of its characters do not change.