The Movie: Novice writer-director Yvan Attal clearly paid very close attention in Writing 101 when told to “write what you know.” For his first feature-length film, he cast his wife, French film superstar Charlotte Gainsbourg, as a French film superstar named Charlotte, and himself as her husband, a sportswriter named, um, Yvan. But while the Yvan of the film struggles with his wife's fame and the peculiar demands of her job-including her love scenes with her latest costar-the real Yvan (who is an actor) is actually poking fun at our ideas of what fame must be like. Unfortunately, the film suffers from a certain lack of dramatic tension and occasional slowness, but it is sophisticated and clever, and boasts an uncommonly strong and evocative score by jazz musician Brad Mehldau. Attal's greatest coup is his uniformly excellent cast, particularly Gainsbourg, whose delicate loveliness Attal photographs with the reverence of a truly adoring husband.

The Disc: Because it was shot in both English and French, this is a good goes-down-easy foreign film for the American subtitle-phobe. Not so, sadly, with the excellent director's commentary. Attal is gracious, interesting, and informative, but talks so quickly that reading his observations requires strict concentration. The disc also includes an appealing making-of featurette.

--C.E.