| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Valérie Lemercier | ... |
Catherine Versen
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| Cécile De France | ... |
Jessica
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| Albert Dupontel | ... |
Jean-François Lefort
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| Claude Brasseur | ... |
Jacques Grumberg
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Christopher Thompson | ... |
Frédéric Grumberg
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Dani | ... |
Claudie
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| Laura Morante | ... |
Valentine Lefort
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| Suzanne Flon | ... |
Madame Roux
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| Sydney Pollack | ... |
Brian Sobinsky
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François Rollin | ... |
Marcel
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| Guillaume Gallienne | ... |
Pascal
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| Annelise Hesme | ... |
Valérie
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Françoise Lépine | ... |
Magali Garrel
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Michel Vuillermoz | ... |
Félix
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Daniel Benoin | ... |
Daniel Bercoff
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Jessica, raised by her grandmother, comes to Paris and gets a job at a bar across from a performance complex where a play, a concert, and an art auction will occur the same evening. It's a world in flux: the play's star wants off a popular TV soap that's made her rich, and she covets the lead in a film about de Beauvoir and Sartre; the pianist hates the concert circuit, but his wife who's his manager may leave him if he quits; a self-made widower with a girlfriend less than half his age is selling his collection of modern art - his son, a professor, objects to his father's love life. The stage manager at the complex is resigning after 30 years. Jessica sets the tone for how all plays out. Written by <[email protected]>
An oh so cute, naive, guileless, and somewhat ditsy mademoiselle from the sticks comes to Paris to follow her grandmother's advice and "push her way in" and see what happens. She lands a job as a waitress in a little café that never hires women. She is hired because the owner needs help during a trifecta of events about to take place near the café. A recital by a great pianist; an opening of a new play starring a famous daytime TV comedienne; and an auction of an art collector's works.
As she waits on the customers, both in the café and in their work, she meets all three of the main players in the events. The poetic license taken is that all of these people would take time to chat; open up and share intimacies with our little gamine. But she is oh so cute, and oh so socially clueless, that she charms them. Through her meanderings we see all the stories of the main protagonists emerge. The pianist wants to quit formal recitals; feeling hemmed in by the pressure. The actress wants to break out of her "popular but shallow" roles; and the collector wants to sell off his possessions because he is dying and he needs the money for his last days with his mistress.
In the end all of the loose ends are tied up and our heroine ends up with the son of the collector. It's all very pleasant, and at times earnest, stuff - but it is all so derivative and staged!