Pretty Good

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Brilliant and touching

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A director struggles to film a key scene of her movie. This is apparently meant to be an autobiography of sorts for Breillat. Parrault, who made a splash as a ruthless killer in "La Femme Nikita" here plays a very different character. She is actually quite good as Breillat's alter-ego, a director obsessed with getting a sex scene in her movie just right. The whole film builds up to this one scene and it's just much ado about nothing, as Breillat's self-indulgence is transferred to Parrault. There's just too much talk, as she has to sooth the egos of her actors, who behave as if they were doing Shakespeare instead of what appears to be soft-core porn.

Sex Is Comedy is a film based upon Breillat's personal experience in filming a sex scene. Trying to inspire a performance that meets her particular demands, Jeanne (Anna Parillaud), the director (based on Breillat) has to overcome the obstacles of her own perfectionism and the obvious animosity between her stubborn actor (Gregoire Colin) and actress (Roxane Mesquida). The Actor is more concerned with playing up to the crew members off camera than putting in a convincing performance on camera, whilst the Actress is more concerned with talking to her boyfriend on the phone than focusing on the film. Jeanne struggles throughout to create the scene as she sees it in her head, but through an oddly intimate relationship with her personal assistant, The Actor and The Actress, manages to coax the performance out of them in a strongly emotional climax.Just as frustrations arise for Jeanne, i too found myself getting a little frustrated at the lack of pace - though this, perhaps, is the point of the film; documenting the arduous nature of film-making and the difficulties that can arise in trying to artificially create an intimate scene between strangers who may well hate each other. In this respect, Sex Is Comedy is a reflection on the nature of cinema – Breillat is raising a mirror to the camera and giving us a 'behind the scenes' look at the problems which present themselves to directors, crews and casts.At times, however, this concept becomes a little confusing. The boundaries between the film within the film, the film itself and Breillat's personal experiences becomes so blurred that it was difficult to discern quite what where we find ourselves. In short, whilst the film very interestingly focuses on the idea of mise-en-abyme, i found myself spiralling into the abyss without knowing quite how to take myself out of it.

Smashing film about film-making. Shows the intense and strange relationships that can develop between directors & their actors; the manipulation and mind games; the preening egotism of performers. As in any workplace, sexuality complicates matters, but here to the nth degree as they are filming a sex scene.Absolutely fantastic performances from Gregoire Colin as the fragile, wannabe macho male lead, and - supremely - Anne Parillaud as the director's self-portrait. The image of her laughing & eating a banana at the end, having finally got what she wants out of her puppets, is pure delight.

As one who loves films that appeal to intellectual sorties as well as those that simply tell stories, this film should have been appealing. But as written and directed by Catherine Breillat who seems to be playing out her own conundrums in film-making experiences, this tedious and talky film fails to arouse interest.The main character Jeanne (Anne Parillaud) is the screen form of Breillat, a director frustrated in her attempts to film a convincing sex scene with two difficult actors (Grégoire Colin is The Actor and Roxane Mesquida is The Actress). The one 'comic' bit is Jeanne's imposing the use of a dildo strapped onto the Actor in order for her to drive the sex scene to fruition, but even this sight gag wears thin quickly and we are left with a film within a film that feels more like a 'Deleted Scenes' featurette on a DVD than a solid French comedy with class. Grady Harp, August 05