“For a particular cohort of the moviegoing population, there are few pleasures more sublime than watching a group of good-looking Parisians chattering over wine, coffee and the occasional cigarette about intellectual subjects, against attractive backdrops of cozy cafes and well-appointed living rooms.
“The filmmaker Olivier Assayas goes to almost parodic lengths to serve this exact subculture with Non-Fiction, a silky seriocomic roundelay starring Juliette Binoche and Guillaume Canet. “Talky, sophisticated and self-consciously erudite, this slice of French literary life is in many ways familiar: Two couples work and socialize together, nursing hidden suspicions and regrets, all the while carrying on more than a few clandestine affairs (this is Paris, after all). But Assayas uses that comfortable framework to mount a steady critique of the enormous technological changes currently engulfing the world, which affect everything from politics to private life, from art to entertainment.
“For audiences who love nothing better than to immerse themselves in an idealized version of high-minded bohemia at its most tastefully nonchalant, Non-Fiction is pure bliss.” The Washington Post
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