SYNOPSICS
Ma femme est une actrice (2001) is a French,English movie. Yvan Attal has directed this movie. Charlotte Gainsbourg,Yvan Attal,Terence Stamp,Noémie Lvovsky are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2001. Ma femme est une actrice (2001) is considered one of the best Comedy,Drama,Romance movie in India and around the world.
Paris can boast a population of 2,125,246. Of these 1,153,000 are women and 10,000 are actresses. Yvan, a young sports writer, is married to one who is very well known - Charlotte. They try to live a normal life, but her fame makes it difficult - autograph hunters interrupt their dinners, cops about to serve traffic summonses let them off with a warning and a smile when they recognize her, and impossible-to-get restaurant reservations magically appear when Charlotte makes the calls instead of Yvan. All this threatens and challenges his male ego, but Yvan is able to take her stardom in stride. Until, that is, a man at a bar asks him if he gets jealous watching his wife make love in the nude to another man on screen. It has never seriously bothered him before, but the stranger sows the first seed of doubt in his head...
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Ma femme est une actrice (2001) Reviews
A Semi-Documentary? Heaven Forfend!
Director/writer/co-star Yvan Attal is actually married to co-star Charlotte Gainsbourg, an effervescent and shimmering bilingual (French/English) beauty. And they both can act. This is a comedy with a dark but non-violent edge. Gainsbourg plays "Charlotte," a star of both French and English films who graciously dispenses autographs left and right and during dinner at restaurants. Attal plays "Yvan," a doting but increasingly disturbed sportscaster who wears down dealing with his wife's intrusive fans and, more critically, his mounting fears that she is having it off with her aging but still presumably babe-magnet co-star in a London studio filming, "John" (Terence Stamp) Yvan apparently is underutilized at work because he has the time to brood deeply and split to London whenever his antagonistic feelings of longing for and suspicion of his spouse surface (which they do increasingly). Stamp gives a delightful portrayal of an old actor whose wife doesn't understand him but he's straddling the pursuit of Charlotte with the subtle reality that he's getting a bit old for that sort of thing. Stamp brings a bemused actor's attempts at dalliance to life. There's an extraneous sub-plot in which Yvan's sister, seriously Jewish, belabors her non-Jewish husband to agree to be circumcised as they await the birth of their first child. This irrelevant and uninteresting side story at least stretches the film out to a barely respectable 93 minutes, justifying the $10 admission. There are amusing scenes, the best being when Charlotte negotiates with her frenetic director for terms on which to appear naked in a scene. The resolution is both predictable and hilarious. While few of us have mates or lovers who are in the public eye as Charlotte is, Yvan's increasing jealousy will strike a familiar chord with many viewers. In real life happy endings to episodes of mounting distrust, approaching paranoia, are few. A good, enjoyable film. But now I'm wondering about the real life marriage of Yvan and Charlotte. 7/10.
Film lacks strength
This is a film that could have had something insightful to say about celebrity marriages or it could have attempted to be a scathing dark comedy but unfortunately it does neither. Story is about a French sports writer named Yvan (Yvan Attal) who is married to a famous actress named Charlotte (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and when she travels to London to work on a film he starts to think whether he should trust her or not. One event puts him over the edge and it's when an obnoxious man starts asking him personal questions about the fact that the sex is real between actors. Yvan punches the guy out but he realizes that his wife's leading man is notorious for sleeping with his co-stars. *****SPOILER ALERT***** He travels to London and surprises Charlotte and he meets her leading man John (Terence Stamp) and instantly Yvan doesn't like him. Then later to his surprise he is told by his wife that she has a crush on him but is not sure how seriously. This film is directed by it's lead actor Yvan Attal and he and Gainsbourg are married in real life. Attal wrote the script as well and you would think that he would show more insight to the dilemma's of being married to an attractive actress but he doesn't and instead the film plays like a very light comedy. When Charlotte admits her attraction to her co-star this should have led to a more complex angle to the story but it ends up resolving itself in a very predictable manner. The actors are good and you can't help but wish more could have been done with Stamp's role. He's too good of an actor to be in something so throwaway. Ludivine Sagnier pops up as an acting student and she does offer Attal something to think about in a small role. This is a film that could have benefited greatly if the script had a harder edge to it and the actors are all talented enough to pull it off but instead we get a lukewarm comedy. There are some good moments but your definitely left thinking more could have been done.
Watchable. But likeable?
CAUTION: SPOILERS! It ain't paranoia if it's really happening. In "My Wife Is an Actress" beleaguered French sportswriter Yvan (played by Yvan Attal, who also wrote and directed)is overcome by jealous worries that his beautiful movie star/wife Charlotte (played by Attal's real-life wife, Charlotte Gainsbourg) might be unfaithful. Yvan fears that Charlotte, who's left their Paris home to film a movie in London, might succumb to the advances of her sexy and disreputable leading man. Yvan's fears, stoked by, among other things, a conversation with a cloddish acquaintance, drive the action in this romantic comedy, which isn't always that comedic. (SPOILER) Several reviewers have labeled Yvan's worries as paranoid. But it ain't paranoia if it's really happening. Turns out Yvan was right to worry. Charlotte falls rather readily for her co-star (Terence Stamp), whose moves are subtle and low-pressure. She has an excuse--Yvan planted the thought in her head with his ranting on the subject and his frequent unannounced trips to London to check up on her. Of course she's obligated to follow her little crush through all the way and sleep with the guy, all the while reassuring her husband that she is not. Bear in mind that her fling is with a pasty, paunchy hack twice her age, as played delightfully by Stamp. You've got to figure a Russell Crowe-like young stud would have her on her back in about 10 seconds. Following her assignation, Charlotte suffers apparent pangs of guilt and boards the Chunnel train for Paris and Yvan. After some innocent misunderstanding they get back together and she continues to tell Yvan that she has not slept with her co-star. Yvan knows she's lying: "You know something? You're a great actress," he says. This movie is watchable and enjoyable, thanks to the attractiveness of its stars and Stamp's old-pro performance. But it is not particularly likeable, as romantic comedies are supposed to be. Ultimately it is a story about a marriage that is doomed to failure: he's obsessively jealous and she's unfaithful and a liar. Not a good combination. Worse, (SPOILER) the vehicle Charlotte and Yvan choose to cement their relationship--having a baby--is almost guaranteed to hurt, not help, a shaky marriage. Charlotte is the film's most interesting character. She is not particularly likeable and is made palatable only by the immense appeal of the actress, Ms. Gainsbourg. In this the film is similar to another French movie about adultery, "Un Pointe Entre Deux Rives," or "The Bridge," in which the grace and beauty of the Audrey Hepburn-like Carole Bouquet make a rather unlikeable character somewhat more sympathetic than she should be. Much has been made of the fact that the characters' names are the same as Attal's and Gainsbourg's real-lfe names. Is "My Wife Is an Actress" autobiographical? I hope not, for both their sakes.
A mirror of early marriage and acting mythology
The readers' reactions to this film were not what I expected-- most seem to be*spoilers*, but I think they, for the most part, have missed the point. This is a multi-lingual farce that shows the director/writer Yvan Attal to have wit and wonder. Those who do not like it are taking it too much at face value and have not tuned in to the very underhanded sense of humor that propels the rhythm of this comedy. Every romance between two talented people is bound to experience this kind of mutual jealousy and mistrust, as part of the growth in a relationship. If they don't, they are kidding themselves. In order to make the film, Attal obviously had to have the "consent" of all the adults in it, and he had to discuss the danger factors as he pried open his more naive characters, himself included. Some of the viewers saw him as a lout. I think Attal must have gone through a kind of "self-analysis" as he made the film, and for a director to present himself as a lout is, after all, rather rare. Loutishness is just one side of a personality that the love relationship brings out. All of these ups and downs are presented on a plate, as in a delicious "tasting meal" one can savor at a chef-driven restaurant. Not everyone will like all the little morsels, but all of them represent the chef's (Attal's) inner and outer struggle with himself (and his wife's) as part of the acting and film industry and being a "talent." A couple of my favorite scenes: 1) his parody of the acting studio as he demonstrates a flower opening; 2) his seeing himself in multiple after he finds out that Charlotte is pregnant (in this age of cloning, how wittier can you get with this image!?);3) his demonstration of "l'amour fou" as he races back and forth on the train through the Chunnel to be with his beloved only to be squelched at the other end. I also was not at all offended by the secondary plot of his sister and her baby. Many young couples constantly grouse at each other as part of their communicating style -- he and his sister as siblings demonstrate their familiarity by biting at each other like cubs. It may not be very pleasant for bystanders, but, in fact, it is very real human behavior, just not part of the iced-cake sibling relationships depicted by Hollywood. I started to watch this film with no expectations, and came away totally delighted, having thought that romantic comedies could no longer be found in film. Of five stars, I would give it **** four and look forward to more of his films. I wouldn't worry about their marriage!
Technically a great comedy... if it weren't for the promotion of the crime of Genital Mutilation
Technically a great comedy... if it weren't for the insistent promotion of the crime of Male Genital Mutilation. Technically, the movie could be too quickly evaluated as a great fresh humorist comedy about the couple Yvan and his actress wife Charlotte, who as a star is exposed to the temptation of matrimonial infidelity. This main plot evolves as a state of the art comedy with a happy ending. However, the subplot about Male Genital Mutilation (circumcision) is insistent and forceful. The story of the baby expected throughout the movie by Yvan's sister is an important element of this insidious propaganda. In effect, the film pretends to have a happy ending; however we learn at the very end, at a time when everything else seems to happy end, that this baby will not be spared this heinous crime. This unfortunate turn of event for the baby is actually presented as a positive resolution of the conflict between Yvan's Jewish sister and her French 'goy' (non-Jewish) husband, who have been quarreling about it since the beginning. The father has been resisting too softly to effectively guaranty the success of his paternal protective duty, so it really should not come as a surprise to the audience that we learn at the very end that he has surrendered. The promotion of this crime against male children Human Rights is reinforced by an important group nude scene supposed to be very funny. This scene involves many adults (the crew of a film being shot within the main plot of the movie), all naked while shooting a love scene involving the heroin star actress Charlotte (she had stated in a mood swing that she could not shoot that scene if everyone else wasn't naked too (ha ha, funny from her director to take her on her word, really, funny!). However, it is interesting to note that the only genitalia we actually get to see are the male ones, and they seem to all (or most) be missing their foreskin, as in to say that such is the reality of the French male anatomy, as in to make a statement: 'mutilated male pride'. Fortunately, it is not true that all French males are so emasculated. Considering how sensitive children can be with their body image, I am saddened that many boys, who may be blessed with a normal intact anatomy (and responsible human parents), may feel traumatized by the view of such a distorted reality, feeling that they may be abnormal, when they are the ones that should feel normal. The main characters of Charlotte and Yvan are interpreted by the real life couple of actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and actor/film maker Yvan Attal. At the time of the movie, their baby boy must have been around 2-3 years old. Considering the importance of the sub-theme of Male Genital Mutilation in the movie, and the somewhat autobiographic style of the film, I felt forced to imagine that the movie was perhaps an attempt by the two protagonists and Yvan Attal in particular, to seek some redeeming moral support by the mirror of the audience who is skillfully tricked into considering the crime against their baby boy as a happy event, to be associated with all the other happy ending elements of the movie, while making a statement of emasculated male pride through the group nude scene. This exhibitionism of their private life is a feeling I would have rather avoided, but the real life facts easily findable online and the insistence on the subplot on Male Genital Mutilation naturally got my imagination going. Most importantly, it seems rather careless to propose a film apparently for a wide audience so frankly on the wrong side of the Human Rights, and so frankly trying to justify a crime of child physical and psychological abuse, child genital mutilation, child torture, while promoting a multi-ethnic and religious married couple's conflict resolution in favor of barbaric ritual practices versus common sense and universal Human Rights. This film is in my mind, well intentioned or not, a de-facto criminal piece of work which participates in the massive conspiracy against defenseless non-consenting underage males' physical integrity, with the full weight of the state of the art of modern comedy making. Such piece of work should be severely censored and participants seriously sentenced, as a deterrent for others who would otherwise dare plotting against children's health and security. 'In a perfect world', far beyond reasonable freedom of expression contingencies, such a crime against a child's Human Rights could not possibly be presented as a happy ending without legal sanctions.