Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68517 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-12-10
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

Amazon.com
A slight but appealing dramatic comedy, My Wife Is an Actress explores the marital downside of fame. It's about the hazards of being married to someone--in this case the fine French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, playing a fictionalized version of herself, also named Charlotte--whose profession and celebrity pose a constant threat to matrimonial harmony. The movie dispels the fantasy of a movie-star spouse (i.e., would you really want to marry Julia Roberts?), exploring the reality with adequate humor but precious little insight. Gainsbourg's actual husband, Yvan Attal, is also her director and costar, playing Charlotte's sports-reporter husband (named Yvan), and turning jealous when she gets friendly with her current film's costar, played with world-weary charm by Terence Stamp. Surely this scenario was fascinating for French filmgoers, and as lightweight drama it's a pleasant enough diversion. Unfortunately, Attal discreetly avoids the deeper details of his life. Instead we get the shallow version, still authentic but not authentic enough. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Yvan Attal's Love Letter to Charlotte Gainsbourg.
No doubt Yvan Attal could write the book on being married to a beautiful French actress. Written and directed by Attal, My Wife is an Actress (Ma Femme est une actrice) is a French romantic serio-comedy starring Attal and his real-life wife, Charlotte Gainsbourg. Attal plays a struggling sports journalist (also named Yvan) who becomes insanely jealous when his beautiful actress wife (also named Charlotte) gets a part in a movie with a seductive older co-star (Terence Stamp). After Ivan is asked if he ever gets jealous watching his wife make love in the nude to another man on screen, he becomes unhinged with jealousy, turning the film into a charming meditation on the perils of fame on the French male ego. Meanwhile, Ivan's Jewish sister (Noemie Lvovsky) and her husband (Laurent Bateau) debate circumcising their baby boy. My Wife is an Actress is equally urbane, captivating, and entertaining.

G. Merritt

fun film
"My Wife is an Actress" is just a recent example of why the best films that are currently available are coming from overseas instead of from Hollywood. "Amelie", "Autumn Spring", "the Navigators", "Billy Elliot", "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels", "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie", "Morvern Callar", "Merci Pour le Chocolat", "Nowhere in Africa", "Y Tu Mama Tambien", and "L'Auberge Espagnole" are all further proof that it is the Europeans whose earnest and creative writing and interesting cinematography are at the cutting edge of today's film industry. This film is driven by Yvan Attal's neuroses which provides a fun glimpse into the daily workings of a sort-of-true-to-life celebrity couple. The screenplay is a lot of fun, and the film maintains a sort of self-deprecating humor and simultaneously energy that is a lot of fun to watch. It is especially humorous when you consider the marriages we have here like "Bennifer", Tom and Nicole/Penelope, and Britney's new marriage/annulment. I find it interesting that so many people are fascinated by real-life dysfunctional relationships in Hollywood, but when two celebrities attempt to make a film poking fun at their own problems, people disregard it. "My Wife is An Actress" is a fun and enjoyable film, and a great date movie. I would definitely recommend this film to anyone.

delightful - an escape from Hollywood
I really enjoyed this film. The story itself was nothing extraordinary, but it embodied the lovely sensitivity of French cinema. I liked it because it gave me a glance of French or European film industry that was so different from the glittery Hollywood. The actress in the film was portrayed as a real, sensible and normal person. I also realized after watching the film that the main characters were a real life couple and the husband was the director, which added another interesting layer to it. They did not even change their names in the film! I really liked the human qualities of this kind of production in comparison to the manufactured qualities of many commercial films. I felt that it was a collaboration of a group of young people whom were working with a modest budget. However, they have done a great job with the limited resources because they had something to say and they knew how to say it well. It was really about making art than making a product.