Look at Me

Look at Me (Comme une image, 2004) is a French tragicomedy by Agnès Jaoui you can watch online on iFILM. Twenty-year-old Lolita has a lovely voice and almost no presence: her father Étienne, a celebrity novelist, has no time for her, and her weight and shyness make her invisible even at family gatherings.

She takes singing lessons and starts to suspect her coach cares less about her talent than about meeting her famous dad. Everyone here is using someone — for a career, a name, a useful contact. The one person who seems to actually see Lolita is her father's younger second wife. Marilou Berry plays the ache without an ounce of self-pity, while Jean-Pierre Bacri turns Étienne into a charming egotist who quietly suffocates everyone near him.

Jaoui made a film about how we look at one another and rarely look closely. It took the screenwriting prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Sharp, funny and a little cruel, it lands best with anyone who likes French drama that never raises its voice. Stream Look at Me (2004) online on iFILM.