Non-Fiction

There's a delicious irony in the fact that lovers of old-school French art house will relish this teasing treatise on the need to stay ahead of the ever-changing times. It's publish or perish for novelist Léonard Spiegel (Vincent Macaigne), who has just been informed by editor Alain Danielson (Guillaume Canet) during a chic Parisian lunch that he is turning down his latest manuscript. Léonard's left-leaning partner Valérie (Nora Hamzawi) is too wrapped up in the real world to massage his ego. But his mistress, TV actress Selena (Juliette Binoche) is more sympathetic, even though she is married to Alain, who is being unfaithful with digital conversion executive, Laure (Christa Théret). But, as no one actually says what they are thinking on a non-intellectual basis, it's unclear whether Alain's loathing of Léonard's brand of auto-fiction is motivated by his aesthetic taste or a suspicion that the adulterous heroine of the spurned opus is modelled on Selena. The performances are impeccable, but it's the brilliance of Olivier Assayas's writing and control of the increasingly witty tone that makes this a cine-literary gem.