Gainsbourg's character seems too sweet to be true until she tangles with her onscreen director over nudity. The fire Gainsbourg brings to the scene suggests she's had similar battles.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
A terrifically deft picture about the thick line that separates movie glamour from the real world, and the thin line between common sense and paranoia.
Washington Post by Ann Hornaday
Attal, who resembles a young Robert De Niro, seems as addled as a director as his character is as a husband, throwing all manner of distractions onto the screen in order to divert the audience.
A light, enjoyable night out. This happens largely because of Charlotte Gainsbourg, who's simply adorable. Attal shoots her with tenderness throughout, a tenderness that comes from familiarity.
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
Although the movie is not as hilarious as you'd hope from the screwball setup, Gainsbourg and Attal make a solid comedy team.
Village Voice by Jessica Winter
Gainsbourg is virtually incidental to her mate's screeching navel-serenade, which maintains a stranglehold on the declarative first-person mode of its title.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
With every detail in this clever peekaboo, the sly filmmaker dangles the possibility that fiction is fact and that Yvan and Charlotte are real -- or at least as real as the movies.
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
It's hard to tell whether Attal means the fictional Yvan to be such an colossal jerk. His abrasive obnoxiousness undermines the film's generally light tone, and seriously deflects sympathy away from his character's dilemma.
Light as the film may be, My Wife Is An Actress is not devoid of charm. It's like a summer book: quick, enjoyable and, mostly, easily forgotten.
The film tends to groan under the weight of his obsessions -- and his sister's fixation on circumcising her son -- yet for much of the 95-minute running time the chemistry between Attal's vulnerable husband and Gainsbourg's sweet, beguiling wife is irresistible. The terrific score is by jazz pianist Brad Mehldau.