Comme Une Image (Certificate Unknown / NA)

Comme Une Image translates more directly into English as "like a picture", which I feel would have been rather a better title than the rather clumsy imperative Look At Me. Though "look at me" shouts the film's basic premise, "like a picture" is rather more subtle yet still holds true to the deeper concerns.

Comme Une Image begins with the chubby Lolita Cassard (Marilou Berry giving a strong performance in the lead role) riding with an arrogant, bitter, taxi driver. On her way to meet her famous author father Etienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri) and his beautiful young trophy wife Karine (Virginie Desarnauts) at a club, Lolita finds herself struggling to make herself heard. Upon reaching the club with her father and step-mother Lolita finds herself refused entry and comforts a drunken journalist, Sebastien (Keine Bouhiza) whilst she waits for Karine's rescue.

Her father, a famous author, is in a dry spell - a months long case of writers block ("I wrote two great lines today, and then realised I have written them already in another book!"). Instead, Etienne Cassard takes on a new author, Pierre Millet (Laurent Grevill) who has just released a critically acclaimed work. Together, Etienne and Pierre forge a working relationship, which brings Pierre's wife Sylvia (Agnes Jaoui) into the mix. Sylvia is a huge fan of Cassard, and happens - unknowingly at first - to be teaching his daughter Lolita to sing.

The movie is an ensemble piece; a finely focused, keenly honed magnifying glass over a small group of people who are linked in numerous ways. The world, such as it is, hardly exists for these people except in as much as it must.

Lolita finds herself continually overshadowed by her father. She has difficulty believing people are interested in her as herself, rather than as a way to obtain an audience with or favours from the famous man. Yet her father barely has time for her, his "big girl". Lolita longs to be seen as herself - and to be accepted as her size amongst the unending bevy of thin, stunning, French women.

Comme Une Image is largely a group relationship drama, with a collection of lighter moments that rarely seem to be forced (Pierre's appearance on a peculiarly bizarre TV show being the only exception). As such it relies upon its characters, and its actors. In this respect it holds up well, with the main performances being strong, believable people. Whilst they may broadly be clich s and caricatures - the distant father, the weight-obsessed blonde trophy wife, the young girl unhappy with her looks - they are invested with enough reality, and enough genuine character to become something more than merely empty shells for plot points.

Berry takes full charge of her role, through the inevitable ups and downs. Bacri drips with both bitterness and occasional misdirected levity. Desarnauts looks the part, in a role that is intended to essentially do just that.

Yet despite a very French approach to the topic, and a very un-Hollywood progression and denouement, Comme Une Image comes across as very familiar territory. The location may be different, but the story has been told many times before. There is little here beyond the people to inspire fascination and the movie will be soon forgotten once you leave the cinema. Yet whilst you are there you will certainly become involved in the lives of these writers, these singers, and that perhaps is worth the price of admission.

6.5/10