Non-Fiction

Following his surprisingly serious Personal Shopper, Olivier Assayas decided to make one of the funniest films of his career. Non-Fiction, which premiered at the last Venice Festival, is a comedy—reminiscent of the films of Eric Rohmer and Woody Allen—about the complex relationships among a group of Parisian intellectuals. Among them is Leonard (Vincent Macaigne), a writer struggling with a midlife crisis who has just finished another novel filled with juicy autobiographical details. To his amazement, the book is rejected by his friend, Alain (Guillaume Canet), a publisher. This leaves a mark on the lives of both men and provokes a number of unexpected consequences in their personal and professional relations. Though it sounds rather innocuous, the humor in Non-Fiction is refreshingly provocative. It is difficult to imagine that anyone else apart from Assayas would be able to get away with such merciless jokes at the expense of both The White Ribbon and Michael Haneke.