Something's wrong with this film. It uses the tools of audiovisual narration in the least effective way.

Not that I would not enjoy a European version of Judd Apatow or walk away from contemporary intellectual discussions on the future and accessibility of literature. I'd be on board with the potential, marginal taste of such stuff.

Had the film carried the same vibrarions of its own poster, I would totally enjoy it. Like, if it had a more cartoonish approach to the interactions at play.

The way it fails to unfold is inevitably boring despite the nuances.

The world it depicts is not one I am a stranger to. Personally, I have had my share of such circles in the Francophonic world, be they focused on literature, graphic novels or cinema. And all those characters, I assure you, are real. The energy is genuine, so are the ways people govern their personal lives.

But... But this is CINEMA... You gotta do -or at least, you BETTER do- something ELSE... Top it up a notch, add some otherworldly spice to the dynamics...

The approach in this one is so anti-ChasingAmy that, one begins to think more on what COULD have been done with that same material, rather than focus on the outcome.

I love a comedy and I love smart movies and intelligent conversation and I love books and here they all are, rolled up together in Olivier Assayas' marvellous new film "Non-Fiction". At his best no-one can touch Assayas for smart talk and this time he's got a great subject, the dumbing down of culture, particularly the written word as books disappear to be subsumed into the World Wide Web, the Cloud, whatever, as people write and read blogs but don't pick up a printed book.

I don't doubt for a minute that anyone reading this review will know what I'm talking about. Film criticism on an electronic device is a symptom of what Assayas is talking about here. Indeed, Juliette Binoche's character is an actress in a television cop show. She's married to Alain, (a superb Guillaume Canet),a publisher who wants to move over to e-books. Vincent Macaigne is an author whose new manuscript Alain has decided not to publish and who uses his own life and the people he knows as material for his work. He's also having an affair with Alain's wife, (Binoche),leading to a great running joke at the expense of Haneke's "The White Ribbon".

It's all good fun, aimed at people who read books, in whatever form, discuss politics and watch Bergman and Haneke and even "Star Wars" movies. Assayas knows his audience and isn't afraid to poke fun at them. You might call this a very French film; it's full of intellectuals having sex and cheating on their partners, not that I'm suggesting these are specifically French concerns. Of course, you don't need to be French or even an intellectual to enjoy this. It's very funny and brilliantly acted by a large cast. Binoche is as good as she's ever been and both Canet and Macaigne are simply wonderful. You do need a tolerance for smart talk, however, as in this film conversation is what passes for action. A movie for our times and not to be missed.

This film starts off quite strongly; an interesting dialogue between the characters on the future consumption of the written word - long/short form; digital, books, blogs etc... Sadly, it soon descends into a rather monotonous exercise in wife swapping and never really goes anywhere. For me, the end didn't come a moment too soon...