'LOOK' DESERVES CAREFUL ATTENTION.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

THE CHARACTERS in Agnes Jaoui's insightful and very funny social satire, ``Look at Me,'' are, as the title implies, desperate for attention. This includes the famous and the invisible, the haughty and the humiliated. For Jaoui, self-absorption is universal, justified or not.

As is neediness. None of the movie's many well-drawn characters has found what he or she is looking for, and all are engaged in the perpetual motion of looking in the belief that fulfillment, however fleeting, might be around the corner.

Jaoui wrote the movie with her husband, Jean-Pierre Bacri, and the screenplay justifiably won an award at last year's Cannes Film Festival. It's rare to find a movie that's so perceptive on so many different subjects. Jaoui and Bacri skewer celebrity worship, sensitively explore women's body issues, delve into relationship dynamics and brilliantly examine the myriad ways people deceive themselves.

As you might guess, it's a talky movie, but never boring. The two main characters seemingly stand on opposite ends of the social spectrum. Etienne (superbly played by Bacri) is a celebrated novelist, smart, funny and something of a monster, a man whose narcissism blinds him to everyone around him, including his 20-year-old daughter, Lolita (Marilou Berry), a shy, overweight young woman profoundly resentful of her father's power and neglect.

``I don't hate him,'' Lolita tells Sebastien (Keine Bouhiza), an earnest suitor whom Lolita believes is using her (like all the others) to get close to her father. ``I just want him dead.''

Etienne, meanwhile, calls Lolita ``anger on wheels.'' Mostly, though, he doesn't give her a thought. He does take an interest in a promising writer, Pierre (Laurent Grevill), who finds his career turned by a great review and his head spun by instant celebrity and success. Pierre's wife, Sylvia (Jaoui, like her husband, fantastic), doesn't like the changes she sees in her husband, but is thrilled (for a moment, at least) to be included in the circle of the great Etienne.

What's so wonderful about all this - aside from the perfect-pitch dialogue and beautifully observed characters - is that the film doesn't contain a whiff of judgment or misanthropy, no small trick in this type of movie. In fact, Jaoui has faith enough in people to end ``Look at Me'' on a hopeful note, a lovely, lyrical little signal flair to reassure us that in a world where people don't listen, human connection remains a possibility.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

LOOK AT ME - Three and one half stars

(PG-13: brief language and a sexual reference)

Starring: Marilou Berry, Agnes Jaoui, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Laurent Grevill, Virginie Desarnauts.

Director: Anges Jaoui.

Running time: 1 hr. 50 min.

Playing: Laemmle's Town Center 5 in Encino; Laemmle's Playhouse 7 in Pasadena; Laemmle's Royal in West Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: Insightful and very funny social satire about the myriad ways people don't listen. In French with English subtitles.

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Jean-Pierre Bacri plays a novelist whose self-involved ways tax his daughter, played by Marilou Berry, in ``Look at Me.''