Jaoui, Agnès 1964-

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Jaoui, Agnès 1964-

PERSONAL:

Born October 19, 1964, in Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France; married Jean-Pierre Bacri (an actor and writer). Education: Studied theater under Patrice Chereau.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Jean-Francois Gabard, Zelig Talent Agency, 57 rue Réaumur, 75002 Paris, France.

CAREER:

Actor, director, and writer. Actress in movies and television films, including Le Faucon, 1983,L'Amoureuse, 1988, Canti, 1991, Une femme d'extérieur, 2000, and La Maison de Nina, 2005. Director of films, including Le goût des autres, 1999, and Look at Me, 2006.

AWARDS, HONORS:

César Award, 1994, forSmoking/No Smoking, 1997, for Un air de famille;Grand Prix des Amériques (cowinner), Montréal World Film Festival, 2000, for Le goût des autres;David di Donatello award for best foreign film, 2001, for Le goût des autres; best screenplay, Stockholm Film Festival, and best screenplay, Cannes Film Festival, both 2004, both for Comme une image; Bodil Award, 2005, for Comme une image.

WRITINGS:

SCREENPLAYS, EXCEPT AS NOTED

Smoking/No Smoking, France 2 Cinema, 1993.

(And actor) Cuisine et dépendances (also see below), 1993, released in the United States as Kitchen with Apartment, 1993.

(And actor) Cuisine et dépendances (play), 1993.

(And actor) Un air de famille, France 2 Cinema, 1996, released in the United States as Family Resemblances, Leisure Time Features, 1998.

(And actor) On connaît la chanson, Alia Film, 1997, released in the United States as Same Old Song,Artistic License, 1997.

(And director and actor; with husband, Jean-Pierre Bacri) Le goût des autres, France 2 Cinema, 1999, released in the United States as The Taste of Others,Offline/Miramax, 2000.

(With Jean-Pierre Bacri) Comme une image, 2004, released in the United States as Look at Me, Sony Pictures Classics, 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

Actress and screenwriter Agnès Jaoui is known for her movie collaborations with her husband, Jean-Pierre Bacri. Together, they write dramatic comedies that are popular social satires. There is an understated quality to these films in which nothing much happens but a great deal is nevertheless revealed. In Un air de famille, for example, a dysfunctional, middle-class family opens old emotional scars through the course of a restaurant meal, yet there are still bonds that hold the family together. Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern felt that the film "achieves perfection on its own terms." Lisa Nesselson, reviewing On connaît la chanson (Same Old Song,) for Variety, commented that this movie about petty deceptions and affairs among a group of Parisiennes is "audacious, delightful, and just about perfect from first note to last."

Le goût des autres (The Taste of Others) marked Jaoui's directorial debut. The story of an improbable romance between an uncouth businessman and a highstrung actress is a "witty, sociologically astute reflection on the attraction between opposites (or rather semi-opposites," according to New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden. Stanley Kauffmann added in his New Republic assessment that "Jaoui's directing and sympathy [for the characters] are what hold us from the start." In her more recent film, Comme une image(Look at Me), Jaoui again acts in and directs a film about a twenty-year-old classical music student who wants to be a singer, her unloving writer father, and her young stepmother. As with her earlier films, Jaoui continues here writing about strained family relationships with a satirical eye.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New Republic, March 5, 2001, Stanley Kauffmann, "On Films—Differences in Taste," p. 24; April 25, 2005, Stanley Kauffmann, "On Films—French Affair," review of Look at Me, p. 24.

New Yorker, April 4, 2005, David Denby, "Two Women," review of Look at Me.

New York Times, October 6, 2000, Stephen Holden, review of The Taste of Others, p. E14.

Variety, November 17, 1997, Lisa Nesselson, review of Same Old Song, p. 64.

Wall Street Journal, June 23, 1998, Joe Morgenstern, review of Un air de famille, p. A18.