As one of the select few French actresses who has earned definite-article status in her homeland — referred to routinely as La Huppert, alongside the likes of La Binoche and La Deneuve — it’s immediately, amusingly jarring to see Isabelle Huppert cast as a thoroughly indefinite article: a jobbing movie extra whose name nobody recalls, no matter how many headshots and résumés she desperately forces into the hands of higher-ups on set. Casting Huppert as an industry nobody is the chief gag of “All About Corinne,” Marc Fitoussi‘s winningly droll film-biz comedy, but there turns out to be a lot of mileage in it, particularly with co-star Sandrine Kiberlain — cast not just as an industry somebody, but as Sandrine Kiberlain herself — as her imperious foil.
Both sending themselves up in contrasting ways, the stars’ perceptive, vanity-free performances lend some weight and feeling to what is otherwise a frothy exercise — as is to be expected from Fitoussi, a specialist in female-driven French divertissements, including the uncharacteristically chipper Huppert vehicle “Copacabana” and the recent Laure Calamy hit “Two Tickets to Greece.” Given its starry, easy-breezy charms and accessibly inside-baseball humor, “All About Corinne” should have little trouble securing global arthouse distribution following a festival run that began as Locarno’s closing night selection, continuing through a gala slot in Toronto; audiences au fait with “Call Your Agent!” and its good-humored brand of industry satire will feel right at home.
“You might want to ask yourself why you’re still in the same place at your age,” says a colleague, with casual cruelty, to Corinne Maclou (Huppert), an actress who, for decades, has been steadily and invisibly working at the least glamorous end of the business — and who, in her sixties, hasn’t yet given up hope of stardom. In fringe theater, at least, she’s had the odd inspired moment in the spotlight; in film, she’s lumped with countless other, younger extras and bit players, fighting for the rare gift of a single line.
Not for lack of ability — Huppert may dim her light a bit, but doesn’t stretch so far as to play a bad actor — she’s simply never had the break, and while Corinne’s efforts to ingratiate herself with A-listers are played for squirm-inducing comedy, there’s also gentle pathos to her desperation, underlined by the ironic star casting. She knows, and we know, that she’s a Huppert-level talent. Why can no one else see it?
Corinne’s standard line to try curry favor with bigger-name actresses is to cheerfully remark on their physical resemblance to each other, noting that they could play sisters — an approach that doesn’t get the diminutive redhead far with the tall, beachy-haired Kiberlain when they share a scene (or at least occupy the same frame) together. But Corinne’s persistence coincides with a sudden phase of insecurity for the soignée leading lady, who’s trying to cultivate a more down-to-earth image after her agent pithily tells her that “even Cotillard is less detached from reality.” And so she pityingly takes Corinne’s CV, as well as the proferred recording of an obscure Chilean play which Corinne believes to be her finest hour.
Nothing comes of it, of course, until months later, when Corinne sees the news that Kiberlain is taking to the Paris stage in a production of the very same play, and bitterly confronts her outside the theater. Out of resentment and shamefaced guilt, a highly conditional friendship is forged, as each actress uses the other to very different ends: In Kiberlain, Corinne sees her long-awaited connection to the top; through Corinne, Kiberlain believes she can keep it real. Fitoussi’s writing is fizzy and lightly bitchy throughout, but it’s the stars, playing freely with their respective screen personae, who make it genuinely funny. In a more obvious iteration of this story, their roles might be swapped: There’s as much inherent comedy in Huppert playing a spiraling, faintly tragic rube as in Kiberlain, best known for her neurotic comic work, revealing the brittle hauteur of her “real” self.
Other good sports turning up as themselves, to wickedly unflattering effect, include Emmanuelle Bercot, tetchily directing a big-budget period drama that could turn things around for Corinne, and Diane Kruger — hilariously glamazonian as she competes with Kiberlain for maximum miscasting in a new Dardenne Brothers film about a tiler in Liège. If that raises a chuckle from you, as it certainly did from this critic, then consider yourself squarely in the film’s target audience. You can cut precisely without cutting too deep: More sweet than scathing, “All About Corinne” loves its stars too much to really draw blood. We love them too, so that’s just fine.