Ma femme est une actrice

A French actress leaves home to shoot a film in London, her husband, a sports reporter gets jealous of her love scenes with co-star Terence Stamp, and the plot leaves a myriad standard devices open for an amiable French farce. Well-acted within modest aspirations, Ma Femme Est Une Actrice is a delightful little film that keeps your attention sufficiently to stay away and want to read the subtitles.

I love this movie. it doesn't have special effects or anything. it is just a basic story about a husband and wife. The acting is superb!!! The jokes are actually funny. The only thing I didnot like was the DP's work. Some of the shots could have been better angle.

I'm not familiar with French films, but I purposely bought this film because I am a long-time fan of Terence Stamp. And as always I am never disappointed in his presence on the screen. Ivan Attal was hilarious as the jealous husband -a very talented, animated actor. Charlotte did a fine job, but seemed low energy or bored most of the time. The attraction between Charlotte and Terence was laughable. I caught that amusement in Terence's behavior whenever he was around her -he really couldn't care less, could he, but why not try? His lack of enthusiasm was evident when he approached Charlotte's assistant with: "Well, what are YOU doing tonight?"

At the end of the "I'm pregnant!" scene, I wanted to know: Whose baby?

"My Wife is an Actress" is all about a man who becomes jealous of his wife's handsome costar when she's required to do boudoir scenes. A so-so romantic comedy with precious little romance, this flick fails to focus on the central question which asks: How do you know if your wife is cheating de facto, in heart or mind, while she performs in bed with another man for the cameras? Instead, the film ruminates about the jealous husband and the tentative wife with occasional excursions into a whole side matter about circumcision which contributes nothing while managing to conjure up a few delightfully clever scenes. With good art, excellent camera work, and solid performances, this half English, half French flick makes for a nominal subtitled watch best saved for broadcast. (B-)

Director/writer/co-star Yvan Attal is actually married to co-star Charlotte Gainsbourg, an effervescent and shimmering bilingual (French/English) beauty. And they both can act.

This is a comedy with a dark but non-violent edge. Gainsbourg plays "Charlotte," a star of both French and English films who graciously dispenses autographs left and right and during dinner at restaurants. Attal plays "Yvan," a doting but increasingly disturbed sportscaster who wears down dealing with his wife's intrusive fans and, more critically, his mounting fears that she is having it off with her aging but still presumably babe-magnet co-star in a London studio filming, "John" (Terence Stamp)

Yvan apparently is underutilized at work because he has the time to brood deeply and split to London whenever his antagonistic feelings of longing for and suspicion of his spouse surface (which they do increasingly).

Stamp gives a delightful portrayal of an old actor whose wife doesn't understand him but he's straddling the pursuit of Charlotte with the subtle reality that he's getting a bit old for that sort of thing. Stamp brings a bemused actor's attempts at dalliance to life.

There's an extraneous sub-plot in which Yvan's sister, seriously Jewish, belabors her non-Jewish husband to agree to be circumcised as they await the birth of their first child. This irrelevant and uninteresting side story at least stretches the film out to a barely respectable 93 minutes, justifying the $10 admission.

There are amusing scenes, the best being when Charlotte negotiates with her frenetic director for terms on which to appear naked in a scene. The resolution is both predictable and hilarious.

While few of us have mates or lovers who are in the public eye as Charlotte is, Yvan's increasing jealousy will strike a familiar chord with many viewers. In real life happy endings to episodes of mounting distrust, approaching paranoia, are few.

A good, enjoyable film. But now I'm wondering about the real life marriage of Yvan and Charlotte.

7/10.