A Self-Made Hero

This movie is a pleasure, an entertainment and an admirable artistic achievement.

This sure-footed, deeply ironic comedy about an impostor who rises through the ranks is rock-solid entertainment with an appealing edge.

Ingeniously rising above the ongoing culture war between France and the United States, Jacques Audiard's A Self-Made Hero piquantly offers a distinct subtext for each country. [3 Oct 1997, p.D7]

[A] distinctive, thought-provoking film.

Audriad's film articulates an uncomfortably familiar vision of a nation desperate enough to believe its own lies, where the copy is inevitably much better than the real thing and heroes are only as genuine as one needs them to be.

Director Jacques Audiard beautifully lays out the story of a charming nobody named Albert who becomes a master of the half- smile and nonchalant gestures of deceit. But the story is also a cogent metaphor for French collaboration with the Nazis.

But this miracle of self-invention has more virtue in the abstract than it does on screen.