Saw The Taste of Others (thanks, Nina!) It was a French comedy/drama, exploring integrity and judgement. The title is a sort of pun. The word "taste" meant to convey not only a quality of other people, but also their aesthetic ideals. The central protagonist is an industrialist of some kind who is so rich that he must hire bodyguards to follow his every move. His wife is a rich twit who cares more about her yappy little dog than she does about her husband. Bored by her, the industrialist fixates suddenly on an actress in a play he's forced to attend. She represents to him the integrity missing from his life, the sincerity and nobility. To her, he represents cynical power, trying to buy with money what he has lost due to indifference.
Ancillary to all of this are the romances of the industrialist's bodyguards, his sister, the actresses friends. They are all in different stages of self-delusion, repulsion, and attraction. The drug-dealing bar-maid starts a relationship with the straight-laced but experienced bodyguard. This relationship is probably doomed, we viewers suspect, but mistaken first impressions are what the film is largely about, so.
This film is largely a drama, but there are a few wryly comic scenes. Small glances and petty arguments provide laughs which are touched with a bit of melancholy. For example at one point the industrialist, his heart broken, buries his head on his wife's shoulder. "Do you want a biscuit?" she asks. He shakes his head, but she was talking to her dog. Funny but sad. Sad but funny. Poignant. The film is a bit slow and mainly preoccupied by the characters' relationships, but I enjoyed it. The characters are drawn compassionately but wryly and I loved the nostalgic back-stage business of a live play.
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