A running joke throughout the film is Léonard (Vincent Macaigne) altering the story of a sexual liaison with Selena (Juliette Binoche) in a movie theater to take place during Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon (2009) rather than Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) because it sounded more chic. Binoche has collaborated several times before with Haneke.
Olivier Assayas who is a great admirer of Éric Rohmer was inspired by Rohmer's The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque (1993), a comedy that dealt with some of the debates going on within French society at the time, while writing Double Vies.
Olivier Assayas' statement for the film: "Our world is in constant change. It has always been. The issue is our ability to keep an eye on that flux, to understand what is truly at stake, and then adapt, or not. After all, that is what politics and opinion are about. The digitization of our world and its reduction to algorithms is the modern vector of a change that unrelentingly confuses and overwhelms us. Digital economy infringes rules, and often laws. Moreover it questions whatever seemed most stable and solid in society and the reality around us, only to dissolve on mere contact. Doubles vies is not about analyzing the workings of the new economy. Its more modest intent is to observe how those questions beleaguer us, personally, emotionally, and sometimes humorously."
For Olivier Assayas, Double Vies is very French in the sense that in France you can still get away with making these kinds of films.
Shot on Super 16mm.