The Taste Of Others (2001) Movie Information:

The Taste Of Others (2001) Directed by: Agnes Jaoui, Jean-Pierre Bacri The Taste Of Others (2001) Written by: Agnes Jaoui The Taste Of Others (2001) Cast: Anne Alvaro, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Brigitte Catillon, Alain Chabat, Agnes Jaoui

The Taste Of Others (2001) U.S. Distributor: Miramax Films The Taste Of Others (2001) U.K. Distributor: Pathé

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The Taste Of Others (2001) Synopsis:

ean-Jacques Castella is a successful suburban businessman, painfully aware of his inability to keep up with the fast changing times. He has no appreciation of the arts, until his wife Angelique drags him to a moving performance of Racine's "Berenice." Much to his surprise, he is overwhelmed by the power and beauty of the lead actress, Clara Devaux, who plays the Queen. He becomes so infatuated with her that he goes back to the play every night. Finally, these two polar opposites are forced together when Castella reluctantly tries to learn English for an important business deal and his English teacher turns out to be Clara.

The Taste Of Others (2001) Movie Review:

The French film "The Taste of Others" primarily revolves around five characters: a businessman, his chauffer, his bodyguard, an actress and a waitress. Castella, the businessman, has a lucrative company, but is not a cultured man. Clara, the actress, is his English tutor and dismisses Castella's crush on her. The chauffeur, the waitress and the bodyguard all have relationship problems that they try to resolve. All these characters' stories intersect, and the film is like "Short Cuts" meets "You Can Count on Me".

The Taste of Others" has just been nominated for an Academy Award (Best Foreign Language Film) and has also won the Cesar Award (French version of the Oscars) for Best Picture. Even with all these accolades, I don't understand why this film is receiving such attention. I thought it was an average movie.

I have a lot of patience when it comes to watching a film, and I really don't mind slow movies. In fact some of my all time favorites are slow films, yet I found myself somewhat bored with the first half of "The Taste of Others". The first hour was very uneven, and it was hard to get into the story when the characters are uninteresting. The stories concerning the chauffeur, the bodyguard and the waitress needed more work as they seemed stale. The only story that I really followed was the one between the businessman and the actress. Their scenes brought life and humor into the film, and I have to say that Anne Alvaro is endearing as the actress. She reminded me a lot of Lily Tomlin.

The second half made up for the sluggish first, and all the pieces finally fell into place, but all this comes a bit too late for a full recommendation.

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The Taste Of Others (2001) review written by: Angelo Aquino