A L'Attaque review

Previously known for his warmly affecting naturalistic work (Marius Et Jeannette, A La Place Du Coeur), Robert Guédiguian's come over all playful with his latest. The action cuts between two middle-class writers squabbling over a screenplay and the characters in that film, a tale of class conflict and desire revolving around a community of people living in a garage - Moliterno&Co - under threat from a multi-national. Whether or not they'll get to see the capitalists off, and who has the hots for who, is what worries our writers.

What's less certain is where Guédiguian's coming from. The formal flightiness here is sporadically amusing ("It needs perversion!" One scribe shrieks about their film) but it's tough to figure out why the garage-set story needs to keep being interrupted by the two writers. Guédiguian's regular ensemble cast is on top form and the garage story element stands on its own, but this is a film of fits and starts that never quite adds up.