Le petit carnet noir

This gem didn't do well at the box office because audiences couldn't make the connection between meanness and romantic comedy. Don't you mind that; think of this as another in the genre of movies that start out being simple stories and turn into movies about movies, not by digging deeper in the layer but by bringing the original movie into "reality."

This one really impressed me with the cleverness of its construction; it unfolded in completely novel and unexpected ways. The thing is anchored in the movie by Holly Hunter and in the show within by Holly's character. Holly has done this kind of folded acting before — "Timecode" comes to mind. She does it rudely; that's just her style.

If you want to make an engaging movie these days, you have to engineer a means to get the audience into the story. The easiest way to do that is to create an audience as part of the story, then trick the movie audience to fold into the story's audience.

Whether you like the "message" or not, I recommend this as a crack piece of screen writing. In nearly all movies, the story isn't important anyway. Only the means for telling the story matters. This is a clean form. See it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.