The premise of this enjoyable comedy of manners - a factory-owning
philistine Castella (Bacri) falls for an intellectual Clara (Alvaro)
- is lifted from David Lodge's novel and TV series Nice Work, even down to
the provincial setting. Agnes Jaoui's debut feels more
all-encompassing, thanks to the broader gallery of well-observed
characters (spoilt only by Castella's wife, a grating housewife
caricature) and the deft enquiry into love's elusiveness and the means
by which aesthetic taste both binds and divides people. Performances
are excellent, especially the two leads, and interest in each
character's predicament is sustained through to the
perfectly-judged denouement.
