Mark Reviews Movies: NON-FICTION

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 23, 2019

The world keeps changing, and we're all just trying to keep up with or uselessly trying to fight against those changes. That's the driving force of Non-Fiction, a sex comedy of sorts from writer/director Olivier Assayas, in which ideas and opinions and technology change much faster than romantic partners.

Basically, we have a cast of characters whose lives are dedicated to the creation of art. In addition to having to worry about the bottom line of financial success and cultural relevance, they now also have to contend with digitization, the habits of an audience adapting to new devices, the ease with which trends can be analyzed, and the quickness of controversy in a world connected by the internet.

These characters are lost among this uncertainty about the future, this onslaught of information, and this overwhelming feeling that the end is coming. Is it any wonder that their personal lives are such a mess?

At the center of the story are two couples. Alain (Guillaume Canet) is an editor at a renowned Paris publishing house, and his wife Selena (Juliette Binoche) is an actress, currently starring on a popular police drama. Léonard (Vincent Macaigne) is an author who specializes in autobiography thinly veiled as fiction, and his girlfriend Valérie (Nora Hamzawi) works for a popular politician.

Alain has decided not to publish Léonard's most recent book, although Selena argues in favor of it. She and the author have been having an affair, while the editor is having one with Laure (Christa Théret), who's helping the publisher catch up with new ways to get books to an audience.

Most of the film is dedicated to discussions and debates about the changes in publishing, television, politics, and culture in general. These are intelligent characters, capable of wading into these topics with some insight, but they're also stubborn ones, who have difficulty accepting that, in some ways, the old ways are going and, in many ways, the new ones are still being decided.

Assayas hasn't made a screed against the changing ways of art and audience consumption. Indeed, Non-Fiction more or less asserts that an evolution is inevitable. He's more concerned with seeing how the uncertainty of the future affects and is reflected in these characters and their relationships. They can adapt with the times or stagnate. Isn't that the way of the world and relationships alike?

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