A sprightly, if pointed look into our technically skyrocketing times comes as a garrulous French import from Olivier Assayas.
Non-Fiction (fully subtitled, its original title Doubles Vies means double lives) is set in a literary milieu and employs a romantic circle to consider impact of on-line and where written activities are headed in espousing philosophical discussions.
Two male middle-agers are the main focus of what is not abstract like his recent efforts which include Personal Shopper and Clouds of Sils Maria which starred venerable Juliette Binoche who also plays an actress here. One known for her television work that is beginning to leave her jaded about her profession. Her husband is the publishing magnate (Guillaume Canet, off-screen husband to Marion Cotillard and of Tell No One) dealing with the rapid digital trends in his industry. While in his coterie there’s the autobiographical novelist (Vincent Macaigne) with a political consultant girlfriend (Christa Theret).
A severance from human deportment as an effect of being ritualized into cyberspace leads to moral relativism, notably when it comes to social authority, besides how they act to those closest to them. Knowing what the printed word is up against help to elicit functional performances from Canet and Macaigne. Yet, it’s Binoche who inadvertently outshines her co-stars in a canny, effortless turn as Assayas’ arguably discomfiting Non-Fictionoften talks its way perceptively into the defining mood of communication advocated most prominently by a millennial state of mind.