A woman in bed starts to read a story to her husband about a woman who visits people and reads to them... Confused? You needn't be. Despite some unusual links between reality and fantasy, this is easy to follow and engaging.

It's inventive without being in love with itself. The staging is fantastic without feeling contrived. It's made with the kind of lightness of touch you need for this kind of film and isn't the kind of thing I've seen coming out of America for some time.

This isn't your usual comedy or romance. It is very French. I don't mean this as an insult. There is fantastic set design, some lovely comic moments and a lilting feel to the music.

Probably not for everybody but if you like a subtle, gently funny, literate and unconventional film then watch this.

One SHINWA has made some scathing remarks about this film, and has passed judgment on the script as well as the direction and even the motivation of the leading actress who (in company with the rest of the cast) gives a most satisfying and believable performance. The character does not indeed refuse to read Sade for her client, she declines to give a second reading of it to an audience including two other men, invited by her client without prior consultation. SHINWA goes on to accuse the character of duel standards because she refused to read Sade, yet earlier leaps into bed with one of her clients; they are both adult and both play the game, she exercises her will as an adult woman in both this and the Sade episode, and I don't know where SHINWA'S notion that the actress bares her crotch has come from, certainly not from this rather wonderful and light hearted film. I can only think that Shinwa considers this film to be unworthy because it fails to meet the high intellectual standards of Shinwa. Unfortunately for all the people who think this way, films are made for anyone to enjoy and must therefore stoop a little every now and then as well as excel. Believe me, this film has nothing to apologize about, it is a beautiful little romp, and the music (composed by a first class bloke who knew what he was doing)is a true delight and so very fitting.

Possible spoilers...

In the evening, Constance reads the novel "the reader". She likes this novel so much that she ends up identifying with the heroine of the novel, Marie. Her job is to read several pages of any book to her customers including a disabled teenager called Eric, a stressed businessman or a little girl whose name is Coralie...

Michel Deville, the director transmits us the joy and the comfort her main character brings to her customers reading pages of Baudelaire, Carroll or Marguerite Duras. Marie thanks to her nice voice, her passion of reading, her shiny presence make people happy and eventually makes the spectator happy. In a way, like "the hairdresser's wife" (1990), a beautiful movie by Patrice Leconte, "la lectrice" is one of these rare films where you smile during almost all the projection. It is the opportunity for Miou Miou to find one of her very best roles too and she offers us a delightful composition. She's the real major asset of the film.

"La Lectrice" is a smart, poetic movie with sparkling dialogs and ingenious sequences where the pleasure of words joins the pleasure of pictures. Another good point: a rightly chosen classical music mainly used in the moments where you see Marie walking down the streets of Arles between two reading sessions. The music gives the movie an impression of lightness and well-being. Besides, I feel that everything here breathes joy of living and even if the end of the movie remains a little dark (Marie by refusing to read an extract from a Sade novel is becoming jobless), we can detect a message of hope in Constance's intention of becoming a reader: reading must be conserved in a society where books occupy a less and less important place.

Michel Deville's movie won the Louis Delluc price in 1988. It was only fair.