''The Taste of Others'' ( ) is a 2000 French film. It was directed by

Agnès Jaoui Agnès Jaoui (; born 19 October 1964) is a French actress, screenwriter, film director and singer. Jaoui has won six César Awards, three Lumière Awards, and a Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival. She has received numerous other ...

, and written by her and

Jean-Pierre Bacri Jean-Pierre Bacri (24 May 1951 – 18 January 2021) was a French actor and screenwriter. He frequently worked in collaboration with Agnès Jaoui. Life and career One of Bacri's earliest film appearances was '' Subway''. He co-wrote with Jaou ...

. It stars Jean-Pierre Bacri,

Anne Alvaro Anne Alvaro (born 29 October 1951) is a French actress whose work spans from the early 1970s through to 2012. She is probably best known for her role as Eleonore in the 1983 biopic '' Danton''. She won one César Award for Best Actress in a Su ...

Alain Chabat Alain Chabat (; born 24 November 1958) is a French actor, comedian, director, screenwriter, producer and television presenter. Originally known for his work in the comedy group Les Nuls, including as the co-writer and lead actor of ''La Cité de ...

Gérard Lanvin Gérard Lanvin (; born 21 June 1950) is a César Award-winning French actor. He quit his studies when he was 17 to become an actor. He took on a role in ''Vous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine'' in 1977 on an offer from the actor Coluche. He ...

and Christiane Millet. It won the

César Award for Best Film The winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Film ( French: ). Winners and nominees 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s See also * Lumière Award for Best Film * Louis Delluc Prize for Best Film * French Syndicate of Cinema ...

, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation in 2001, and was nominated for an

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...

Plot

Castella (Bacri) owns a steel factory. He is told that in order to conduct business with a group of Iranians, he must learn English, so he hires Clara (Alvaro) to teach him. His wife, Angelique (Millet), is an interior decorator who loves her dog and is in the process of working on her sister-in-law's apartment. The couple goes to the theatre, where their niece is performing in a production of ''

Bérénice ''Berenice'' () is a five-act tragedy by the French 17th-century playwright Jean Racine. ''Berenice'' was not played often between the 17th and the 20th centuries. It was premiered on 21 November 1670 by the Comédiens du Roi at the Hôtel de ...

'', accompanied by the driver, Bruno (Chabat), and Castella's temporary bodyguard, Franck (Lanvin). While there, he sees Clara, who is an actress. Meanwhile, we learn from Franck and Bruno's conversation that the former was a police officer. After working tirelessly with his partner towards bringing down a seemingly untouchable criminal, their investigation was abruptly ended. Franck had finally suffered enough corruption and quit the force, while the partner he respected never spoke a word about it. Franck sends Bruno to the bar to buy cigarettes. The barmaid, Manie (Jaoui), remembers having had sex with Bruno, but Bruno regrets that he does not remember her. After ''Bérénice'', Clara goes to the bar with her friends, including Antoine and Valerie, and their conversation reveals that she is afraid of never working again; after all, she is forty years old. Bruno, whose fiancée is doing an internship in the United States, spends the night with Manie, who, it turns out, sells drugs on the side and is frequently visited by clients. Franck meets Manie through Bruno, and they start a relationship. Previously uninterested in theater and reluctant about seeing a play rather than having dinner in a restaurant, Castella attends another of Clara's performances and develops a fascination with her bohemian lifestyle. He joins her and her friends for lunch and attends an art show where he buys a piece. However, his cultural ignorance and general roughness make him a laughingstock. At the bar with Clara's friends, they joke with him that

Henrik Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright, poet and actor. Ibsen is considered the world's pre-eminent dramatist of the 19th century and is often referred to as "the father of modern drama." He pioneered ...

is a great comic playwright, as well as other dramatists like

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...

. Clara confides to her friend Manie that Castella is thick. Castella's English is poor at first, but he soon makes progress. He and Clara move the classes from his office to an English tea room, and to mark his progress, he writes an awkward poem dedicated to Clara; however, he is dismayed when she says that she does not share the feelings expressed in his poem. One day she waits at the tea room and he doesn't show up. Throughout the film, Bruno practices his flute, which he plays in a band. Later, he gently complains to Manie that he hasn't received news from his girlfriend who has gone to the US for an internship. Finally, the girlfriend tells him that she has, like him, slept with someone else, and also wants to stay in the States. Manie has now developed an intense affair with Franck, to the point that they speak of marriage—jokingly, they say. However, Franck reveals himself to be more and more angry and bothered regarding Manie's drug dealing, which proves to finally end their relationship. Castella and Angelique are drifting apart, which is made clear when she moves the painting he bought from Clara's friend. She doesn't like it and says it doesn't go with the rest of the house. He retorts that he can't stand living in a candy store, referring to Angelique's interior decorating. Clara starts to feel that her friends are taking advantage of Castella and tells him. He tells her that he bought the painting and is working with her friend to redesign the front of his factory not for her but because he truly likes those things. Franck's contract is finished, and Bruno reveals that the corrupt politician he had tried to send to prison was finally caught by his former partner. Bruno says that he thinks the partner was right to stay on the force after all. This leads Franck to drive to Manie's apartment for a reconciliation. From her window, she sees him reach the door to the lobby, but he hesitates and finally drives away. Clara lands the lead part in ''

Hedda Gabler ''Hedda Gabler'' () is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The world premiere was staged on 31 January 1891 at the Residenztheater in Munich. Ibsen himself was in attendance, although he remained back-stage.Meyer, Michael Lever ...

'' and invites Castella to the opening. Agitated after seeing an empty chair all night, Clara is overjoyed to see him in the audience as she takes her final bow.

Cast

as Jean-Jacques Castella *

as Clara Devaux *

as Bruno Deschamps *

as Manie *

as Franck Moreno * Christiane Millet as Angélique Castella *

Wladimir Yordanoff Wladimir Yordanoff (; 28 March 1954 – 6 October 2020) was a French actor of Bulgarian origin. He appeared in more than sixty films since 1979. Yordanoff died on 6 October 2020 in Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural ...

as Antoine *

Anne Le Ny Anne Le Ny (born 16 December 1962) is a French actress, screenwriter and film director. Theatre Filmography Cinema Television Screenwriter / Director Awards and nominations References French film directors French ...

as Valérie *

Brigitte Catillon Brigitte Catillon (born 20 July 1951) is a French actress and screenwriter. She was nominated for the César Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1993 for '' A Heart in Winter'' directed by Claude Sautet. She was also nominated for the Molièr ...

as Béatrice Castella *Raphaël Defour as Benoît *

Xavier de Guillebon Xavier or Xabier may refer to: Place * Xavier, Spain People * Xavier (surname) * Xavier (given name) * Francis Xavier (1506–1552), Catholic saint ** St. Francis Xavier (disambiguation) * St. Xavier (disambiguation) * Xavier (footballer, born ...

as Weber

Themes

Speaking to ''

Paris Match ''Paris Match'' () is a French-language weekly gossip magazine. It covers major national and international news along with celebrity lifestyle features. ''Paris Match'' has been considered "one of the world's best outlets for photojournalism". ...

'' in 2004 Agnès Jaoui said; "I detest mono-cultures. The problem of identity is something very complicated with me. I am profoundly secular, but if I were attacked for being Jewish, I would scream. And I want the right to say I violently condemn the politics of

Ariel Sharon Ariel Sharon ( ; also known by his diminutive Arik, ; 26 February 192811 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the prime minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Born in Kfar Malal in Mandatory Palestin ...

, even if it's complex. It's the same thing for Jean-Pierre as it is for me, it is the individual who counts. It's the social dimension of characters that interests us, not their roots or their heredity. I detest the notion of the inward looking group. It's this we tried to say in ''The Taste of Others''. Whether it is a religious clan or a group of snobs, it's the same in our eyes. It's the same dogma, the same fundamentalism."

Reception

Critical response

, the film holds a 98% approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, based on 60 reviews with an average rating of 7.8/10. The critical consensus states: "''The Taste of Others'' is a fresh, witty comedy about the attraction of opposites. The characters are well-drawn and engaging and their social interactions believable."

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

assigned the film a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Box office

The film opened at the top of the French box office with a gross of $4.3 million in its opening week from 711,458 admissions.

Awards and nominations

Won

César Awards The César Award is the national film award of France. It is delivered in the ' ceremony and was first awarded in 1976. The nominations are selected by the members of twelve categories of filmmaking professionals and supported by the French Min ...

** Best Actor – Supporting Role ** Best Actress – Supporting Role **

** Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation *

David di Donatello Awards The David di Donatello Awards, named after Donatello's ''David'', a symbolic statue of the Italian Renaissance, are film awards given out each year by the ''Accademia del Cinema Italiano'' (the Academy of Italian Cinema). There are 26 award ca ...

Best Foreign Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...

European Film Awards The European Film Awards (or European Film Academy Awards) have been presented annually since 1988 by the European Film Academy to recognize excellence in European cinematic achievements. The awards are given in 19 categories, of which the mos ...

**Best Screenwriter (Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnès Jaoui) * Montréal Film Festival **Grand Prix des Amériques (Agnès Jaoui; tied with ''

Innocence Innocence is a lack of guilt, with respect to any kind of crime, or wrongdoing. In a legal context, innocence is prior to the sense of legal guilt and is a primal emotion connected with the sense of self. It is often confused as being the op ...

'')

Nominated

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...

**Best Actor – Leading Role (Jean-Pierre Bacri) **Best Actor – Supporting Role (Alain Chabat) **Best Actress – Supporting Role (Agnès Jaoui) **Best Director (Agnès Jaoui) **Best Editing (Hervé de Luze) *

**Best Film **European Discovery of the Year (Agnès Jaoui)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Taste of Others, The 2000 films 2000s French-language films 2000 comedy-drama films Best Film César Award winners Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor César Award–winning performance Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress César Award–winning performance Films whose director won the Best Director Lumières Award Films directed by Agnès Jaoui Best Film Lumières Award winners French comedy-drama films 2000s French films