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Lost Illusionsarrives on our shores trailing clouds of awards glory, but dont hold that against it.
Such a pedigree may suggest something stately, mannered, and, frankly, a little boring.
Giannoli knows exactly which buttons to push and for how long.
There, he gets a rather dispiriting introduction to how journalism works.
The papers arent interested in reporting any semblance of the news.
(Canard, get it?)
(Is this how some filmmakers see their critics?
As ambitious, bad-faith actors beholden to status, money, and popularity?
If so, I have some terrible news for them and for us.)
But its not just the newspaper industry that works in this way.
The citys theaters, we soon learn, are prey to the same forces.
Powerful individuals pay to plant audience members to cheer or boo certain works and performers.
The hypocrisy is enough to make you scream.
His characters are similarly self-aware.
Balzac himself portrayed this world in painstaking, infuriating detail, having run some newspapers in his day.
Giannoli is walking in the footsteps of masters, but hes smart enough not to emulate them.
Giannoli probably understands he has no business trying to match or evoke those films.
Hes more interested in telling a ripping yarn, and hes got a wonderfully wild and catty one here.
