Review of Look at Me (2004) by V H — 21 Jun 2005

I've been busy. Too busy to write movie reviews and too busy to see very many movies. I thought about just letting this journal wither away and die but summer vacation is on the horizon. Soon I'll be able to while away my hours in dark, overly air-conditioned theatres and then scurry home to write pithy reviews of what I've seen. Or, more likely, pointless meandering reviews.

So I've got a backlog of three unreviewed movies from the last few weeks and most of the details have already been whitewashed over with advertising jingles. (Save big money at Menards!) So I'm thinking brevity is the way to go here.

But before I get to my actual review, I have an announcement to make: I will never again go to the Brew and View! Yes, that's right. NEVER AGAIN! Granted, I've only ever gone there once or twice before in my life, but still. They actually carded me a few weeks ago when I tried to see "The Upside of Anger", which isn't even supposed to be a very good movie. And since I had no ID, they wouldn't let me in, even though I was only interested in the view, not the brew, and even though I turned 21 a very, very long time ago and they knew it. Little prick bastards.

Anyway. "Look at Me" is the second in a series of three movies which I saw which just happened to be about lousy fathers and their relationships with their offspring. This one is about a chunky French girl named Lolita who aspires to be an opera singer. Lolita's father is a self-absorbed book publisher with a much younger second wife, a new little girl, and no interest in Lolita. Lolita strives to win her father's affection and approval, but when he's not ignoring her, he's criticizing her. Making matters worse, she suspects that all of her "friends" are really using her to get access to her famous father, which appears to mostly be true. So Lolita spends much of the movie pouting.

I gave this movie an 8, because I remember liking it even more than "Tell Them Who You Are", the first in the series of bad father movies, which I gave a 7. I'm a sucker for French films where people have big old weekend houses in the countryside and they ride their bicycles down dirt roads to do their shopping and then everyone sits around a big table drinking wine and eating huge leisurely meals. I want to live in a French movie. At least for the dinner scenes.

Further rambling has been curtailed in the interest of brevity. And my old friend pith.