Cinema for domestic consumption The owner of the Castella factory is experiencing an unhappy marriage. But seeing once in an ordinary theatrical production is not the first youth actress Clara, he suddenly imbues her with such a strong feeling that he almost loses his mind. Clara, in turn, communicates closely with the waitress Mani, who meets in turn with Frank, Castell's bodyguard, then with Bruno's chauffeur, who carries the wife of the manufacturer. Castella dreams of entering the circle of the artistic bohemian to break out of the closed, suffocating environment of his environment - stupid industrialists, preoccupied with only three problems - increasing profits, reducing taxes and reducing staff.
Having met Clara, Castella begins to see in the world around him, in addition to the eternal race for lucrative contracts, art and beauty. Meanwhile, being among people of a different mindset and different tastes, he feels that he will never fully understand them unless he throws off the shackles of the miserable existence that he has been forced to drag on for many years. He feels that he is not alone in his desire to radically change his life, but does not know how the coming changes will complicate his inner world and bring confusion into relations with loved ones.
The French, unlike, for example, Americans, quite accept conversational stories with endless and often optional dialogues, passing events, ordinary faces. And if the plot is seasoned with romantic background and piquant situations, charm and flirtation, then there is no limit to the adoration of the French. In this intellectual comedy melodrama, which became the directorial debut of actress and screenwriter Agnès Jaoui, who performed the role of waitress Mani in Le Gout Des Autres, two different social worlds are explored. In real life, their representatives almost never intersect, moving in their orbits.
Zhaoui puts something like an experiment - transplants one of the characters into an unusual environment for him, which she knows thoroughly. The result is a typical French film (made as if specially for film academics) on the theme “When would you know from what quarrel the poems grow...”. The bustle of life here is elevated to the rank of if not high poetry, then at least a carefully rhymed poem with never broken rhythm and line size. In the ornate drawings of human destinies, necessarily interconnected with each other, each character is shown, albeit in an unobvious, but indispensable development, although this does not become noticeable immediately.
Having received four César awards (for best film + for the original script, the male role of the 2nd plan - Gerard Lanven, the female role of the 2nd plan - Anna Alvaro), Jaouie's picture was automatically approved by her colleagues in the status of a visiting card of French cinema of the 2000 year. But unlike the close in spirit and essence of the triumphant of 1999 - the melodrama "Beauty Salon "Venus", "For another's taste" is made mainly for domestic consumption. This once again proves the failure in the foreign box office: if in France the film was watched by 3.816 million viewers, then in neighboring Spain only 0.189 million, that is, 20 times less! And in video stores in Russia, the cassette quickly migrated to the departments of discounted products.