Doubles Dirty (2018)

Directed by: Olivier Assayas | 108 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Macaigne, Christa Théret, Nora Hamzawi, Pascal Greggory, Laurent Poitrenaux, Sigrid Bouazis, Lionel Dray, Nicolas Bouchaud, Antoine Reinartz

What does digitization mean for the future of the written word? That is the theme in ‘Doubles foul’ (2018) by French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, who we still know from ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’ (2014) and ‘Personal Shopper’ (2016). Who is still waiting for books when you can already find everything on the internet? The work of the most popular bloggers is now read more than the work of 95 percent of the writers’ guild. What’s the point of publishing literary work in book form if you can turn it into ebooks and audiobooks with much less money, time and effort? Publishing is a fairly cumbersome, traditional world in which it takes some time to make changes. ‘Doubles dirty’ is precisely about the friction that arises between the romantics who want to cling frantically to the old and the progressive young dogs with dollar signs in their eyes, who want to speed up the process of digitization. Assayas does not really take a stand, but examines through his characters which arguments there are for modernization and which against. That sounds rather didactic and pedantic, especially in a feature film, and it is. And even though he discusses interesting angles, the question remains whether a light-hearted relationship drama like ‘Doubles Dirty’ is the right way to investigate this kind of solid theme.

As heavy as the underlying subject is, so thin is the story. As mentioned, ‘Doubles Dirty’ takes place in the publishing world. Publisher Alain Danielson (Guillaume Canet) has a meeting with the somewhat naive writer Leonard Spiegel (Vincent Macaigne), who is eager to know what he thought of his latest manuscript. Leonard has had some modest successes in the past, with autobiographical fiction novels detailing his countless amorous conquests. Alain actually thinks Leonard’s work is ego-tripping and this new manuscript is more of the same, so he has no intention of publishing this work. His wife Selena (Juliette Binoche) thinks otherwise, but she is not completely neutral as she is Leonard’s current mistress. Meanwhile, Alain is busy with the future of his profession, which in turn is prompted by his young colleague Laure (Christa Théret), who has to steer the publishing house smoothly into the digital world and who is not too bad with her boss the to dive into a suitcase if it gets her way. Actress Selena plays the lead role in a successful police series but actually feels too good for such nonsense. To continue to matter, she pushes her pride aside and trots back on set. Leonard’s wife Valérie (Nora Hamzawi) is the personal assistant to a promising politician and, because of her busy job, rather curt and harsh with her husband. While he wonders if she knows about his countless affairs, she has other things on her mind.

The literary world, politics, the actors’ guild; the characters in ‘Doubles Dirty’ move in the higher circles and behave that way. They come across as quite pretentious with their endless drivel – because yes, there is a lot of talk in this film – about the commercialization of the book trade and the democratization of the internet. All nice and nice, but because it mainly remains with words and hardly comes to action, the discussions miss their target. Their snobbish demeanor, remarkable morals (why doesn’t anyone seem to mind being cheated?) and obnoxious navel-gazing makes it difficult for us to like the characters. It’s thanks to top actors like Binoche, Canet and Macaigne that we go along with Selena, Alain and Leonard to a certain extent, but when at the end it is mentioned in a semi-ironic way that actress Juliette Binoche has to record the audiobook of Leonard’s latest novel , the pinnacle of self-staining has pretty much been reached. Olivier Assayas certainly has useful things to say in ‘Doubles Dirty’, but the form in which he has cast his speech unfortunately does not serve his message. As a result, the film gets stuck in a half-hearted look into the life of a group of snobs who like to hear themselves talk and take it way too seriously.