CRITIC'S CHOICE
Woody Allen is no longer making films that sting, but his successor as a comic triple threat (writing, directing and acting) may well be France's Agnes Jaoui (The Taste of Others). Her latest wise and witty film follows a pudgy, 20-year-old singer (Berry) as she desperately seeks the approval of her self-involved dad (Bacri, who cowrote the screenplay with Jaoui), a famous novelist. In examining these two and other members of Paris's artsy crowd, Jaoui shows a keen ability to portray, with observant affection, characters who are alert to the shortcomings of their nearest and dearest but often oblivious to their own. (PG-13)
