Non-Fiction, the latest film by Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper, Clouds of Sils Maria) might as well be a detective picture. Its central mystery, which dogged me throughout two viewings, amounts to when exactly the film is supposed to take place. Ignore the English subtitles and it’s obvious these chatty characters – who inhabit Paris’ literary scene either directly or tangentially – all own recent versions of Apple products. Ok, great. But when the conversation turns to the state of modern culture, seemingly the only topic of interest here, we’re suddenly whisked back fifteen years, to an era when handwringing about all-powerful bloggers and the scourge of e-books was de rigueur amongst the literati.
I’m still unclear whether Assayas is in on the joke or hopelessly behind the times, but this barrage of anachronisms distracts from a film that’s really about thinly veiled duplicity. (Its original title, Doubles vies, translates to Double Lives). Non-Fiction feels like a French twist on the Upper West Side interiors Woody Allen explored with Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters. The bulk of its intended wit, which never achieves the verbal sparkle of a good Allen picture, may just be lost on this particular American.
Non-Fiction is the story of two married couples for whom fidelity is less important than the comfort of domesticity. Léonard (Vincent Macaigne) is a flailing novelist in the mold of Karl Ove Knausgård, though he’s far less commercially successful. He writes about his life, one that’s rife with adultery, and calls it fiction (hence the film’s title). He’s married to Valérie (Nora Hamzawi), a political consultant who, upon hearing about the failure of Léonard’s latest manuscript, reacts with a blank stare and then changes the subject. Alain (Guillaume Canet) is Léonard’s publisher and friend, the man who refused to print his novel. He’s married to Selena (the always luminous Juliette Binoche), a TV actress, and is sleeping with Laure (Christa Théret), a millennial digital strategist. Little does he know, Selena is in the midst of a six-year affair with Léonard. Also unbeknownst to Alain, she’s a major character in the very novel he’s passing on, which dramatizes a movie theater blowjob during Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon. Or is it Star Wars: The Force Awakens? Who knows? More importantly, who cares?
These secrets and lies eventually come to light, more or less, and no one seems to bat an eye at their revelation. Olivier Assayas savors the little moments, surreptitious têtes-à-têtes between his morally ambiguous characters in a café or a bedroom. How well can a grand discourse about modernity harmonize with the particulars of this small-scale, convoluted narrative? Not well at all, unfortunately. The dissonance isn’t deafening, but it is distracting. Non-Fiction, with its excellent cast and fully realized characters, is a proof of concept better suited for a different medium, one that contradicts its underlying thesis: This pilot would make a killer Netflix series.
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