Some people who commented the movie here seem to have misunderstood a few things. I don't think Charlotte cheats on Yvan, I don't know where some people here got the idea, but even if we can see she contemplates the idea, she never does it, which shows an understanding of her husband predicament. Also, Yvan's sister and her husband are only discussing whether their BABY should be circumcised. Never was it mentioned that the circumcision would include the husband as some here have written. Some were thinking that this story had nothing to do in that movie but I think it has everything to do with it, since I think this movie is about couples that deal and overcome problems created by the very nature of the individuals in the couple, and this can exist in many various ways. It is about how you can deal with something that is not changeable (Charlotte is an actress and isn't going to change that, and Nathalie is Jewish and it is not going to change, she actually clings onto that in a very selfish - she ponders her baby's interest, his very identity while chainsmoking throughout her pregnancy, to the ridiculous despair of some reviewers - and ridiculous way - her own father calls her a crazy lot...)The story is therefore more about how Yvan learns to deal with the fact that his wife is something that he won't be able to change, hence his adaptation.This is a grown-up romantic comedy. Love isn't a given forever once you marry, as all American romantic comedies seem to tell (they mostly describe - in a very predictable way - how love begins, never how it is nurtured, therefore giving the feeling that American romantic comedies are designed for tweens who have never been in love before). This seems to be Yvan Attal's main concern judging from his other movie "Ils se marierent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants" (the traditional last sentence of french fairy tales): Falling in love is not really difficult, it is actually very easy as illustrated in this movie by the encounter with the very lovable Geraldine, the theatre student. STAYING in love IS the difficult part, and this is what this movie is all about...Also, some cultural references may have not be understood by people not familiar with France (Ophelie Winter in the train, Nagui, Marc Lavoine and Catherine Lara in the restaurant are all famous folks in France, the reference to some of the Paris Saint Germain football club fans) and may have made some scenes a bore while they were actually pretty funny for those able to fully grasp the situation.Overall, an interesting subject, nicely done and a charming cast (again unlike others have said the actress didn't need to look like J-Lo and the actor like Brad Pitt to believe in their mutual attraction. Like only good-looking people can seduce...)

Now the description of this movie immediately got me interested: real-life husband and wife, Yvan & Charlotte, play a husband and wife named Yvan & Charlotte! Charlotte is an actress (as in real-life), and Yvan is jealous about the scenes between her and her leading men. Now isn't that something that immediately makes you think you're voyeuring into some real-life predicaments? Well, it didn't work. There was no chemistry between Charlotte and Terrance Stamp (John), the supposed object of jealousy for Yvan. You just didn't buy the idea that Yvan could ever be jealous of John.There was an interesting sub-story involving Yvan's sister who is a Jew married to a Christian. The story involves circumcision of a baby boy that will be born to them soon. I wish they spent more time on this substory rather than the main story. The substory was so much more interesting.

CAUTION: SPOILERS! It ain't paranoia if it's really happening.In "My Wife Is an Actress" beleaguered French sportswriter Yvan (played by Yvan Attal, who also wrote and directed)is overcome by jealous worries that his beautiful movie star/wife Charlotte (played by Attal's real-life wife, Charlotte Gainsbourg) might be unfaithful. Yvan fears that Charlotte, who's left their Paris home to film a movie in London, might succumb to the advances of her sexy and disreputable leading man. Yvan's fears, stoked by, among other things, a conversation with a cloddish acquaintance, drive the action in this romantic comedy, which isn't always that comedic.(SPOILER) Several reviewers have labeled Yvan's worries as paranoid. But it ain't paranoia if it's really happening. Turns out Yvan was right to worry. Charlotte falls rather readily for her co-star (Terence Stamp), whose moves are subtle and low-pressure. She has an excuse--Yvan planted the thought in her head with his ranting on the subject and his frequent unannounced trips to London to check up on her. Of course she's obligated to follow her little crush through all the way and sleep with the guy, all the while reassuring her husband that she is not.Bear in mind that her fling is with a pasty, paunchy hack twice her age, as played delightfully by Stamp. You've got to figure a Russell Crowe-like young stud would have her on her back in about 10 seconds.Following her assignation, Charlotte suffers apparent pangs of guilt and boards the Chunnel train for Paris and Yvan. After some innocent misunderstanding they get back together and she continues to tell Yvan that she has not slept with her co-star. Yvan knows she's lying: "You know something? You're a great actress," he says.This movie is watchable and enjoyable, thanks to the attractiveness of its stars and Stamp's old-pro performance. But it is not particularly likeable, as romantic comedies are supposed to be. Ultimately it is a story about a marriage that is doomed to failure: he's obsessively jealous and she's unfaithful and a liar. Not a good combination. Worse, (SPOILER) the vehicle Charlotte and Yvan choose to cement their relationship--having a baby--is almost guaranteed to hurt, not help, a shaky marriage.Charlotte is the film's most interesting character. She is not particularly likeable and is made palatable only by the immense appeal of the actress, Ms. Gainsbourg. In this the film is similar to another French movie about adultery, "Un Pointe Entre Deux Rives," or "The Bridge," in which the grace and beauty of the Audrey Hepburn-like Carole Bouquet make a rather unlikeable character somewhat more sympathetic than she should be.Much has been made of the fact that the characters' names are the same as Attal's and Gainsbourg's real-lfe names. Is "My Wife Is an Actress" autobiographical? I hope not, for both their sakes.

Charlotte Gainsbourg has starred in `The Little Thief' in French and `The Cement Garden' in English and in about 26 other movies. She's been in films at least since she was thirteen, so it seems surprising she's only 31. Her parents were Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, both French cinema and pop culture icons. In this movie with the straightforward title, `My Wife Is an Actress,' her longtime companion and the father of their child, Yvan Attal, directs her and plays her husband in a story about an actress named Charlotte (who's famous) and her sports writer husband named Yvan (who's not), and the problems he has with this simple fact: she's a movie star; he's not.It might have been more truthful to call the movie `My Wife Is More Famous Than I Am,' because Yvan Attal isn't an unknown sports writer; he's a movie actor too, and he's been in 23 movies himself, including the excellent `Love Without Pity' (`Un monde sans pitié, 1989), directed by Eric Rochant. He's just not as famous as Charlotte, and this is the first full-length film he's directed. What's it like to be constantly reminded that your wife is more popular and better known at the same thing that you do? That might be a more interesting subject, if less suitable for light romantic comedy, which is what `Ma femme est une actrice' aims to be. Yvan Attal has cast himself as a kind of everyman, a little guy.Regardless of your occupation, you might be jealous, if your wife were making out with actors in front of the camera all the time. That's what gets through to Yvan – the movie Yvan -- when an annoying fellow introduced to him at a bar by his tiresome obsessively Jewish sister, Nathalie (Noémie Lvovsky) keeps harping on the issue. If Ivan had cast himself as an actor, he might be more understanding; and in the movie, he takes acting lessons to gain more sympathy for Charlotte's career. His success auditioning as a flower bursting into bloom leads him into a little affair with a young aspiring actress – but the affair doesn't bloom; it just leads to a misunderstanding with Charlotte.The base line feeling the movie deals with -- annoyance at having a famous movie star wife -- comes though strongest in the early scenes when Charlotte and Yvan are going around Paris and she's constantly being asked for her autograph -- and he's not. It isn't good for his ego that while he can't reserve a table before midnight at a restaurant, if she comes on the phone there's one ready at nine.The jealousy Yvan feels about Charlotte's playing nude love scenes is a concern that goes deeper, but this is developed indirectly, by having Charlotte get bothered by the idea herself after talking to Yvan, then making a fuss about it at Pinewood Studios in England, leading to a colorful scene. While the London film is being shot, Yvan keeps going back and forth on the train to visit her. This is where his `sports writer' role evaporates. He exists only as a jealous husband. Eventually he has an encounter with his wife's British costar, an older actor with sex appeal -- "John" – Terrence Stamp. Perhaps there is nothing more in danger of seeming inauthentic, or more difficult to make interesting, than essentially playing yourself, as Gainsbourg and Stamp, and to a lesser extent Attal, are doing here.I remembered Charlotte Gainsbourg as a spoiled, pouting creature, and was afraid I wouldn't want to see her as herself. In fact she's charming, light as air, always conveying the impression of the smooth professional, and it's fascinating to watch somebody who can act as fluently in English as she can in French. It's an extra attraction to see Terence Stamp playing an aging English actor. But he's so laid back about his courtship of Charlotte that all the energy goes out of the scenes he's in.Nathalie, the ultra-Jewish sister, becomes the movie's biggest annoyance. She seems to be present to make us aware of the fact that Yvan's Jewish (Attal was born in Tel Aviv), a fact that has nothing to do with his character. Nathalie has a `goy' husband and she's pregnant. They are constantly arguing about whether the husband should get circumcised and the baby, if a boy, should be. A tired enough issue, made more so by its constant repetition. This running unfunny joke is made even less funny by the fact that Nathalie, the pregnant woman, always has a cigarette in her hand or in her mouth, and continues to smoke like a chimney even with the newborn baby in the room. Another annoyance of this movie is that it contains some homophobic and anti-Arab remarks, and they're not ironic, they're just there.The tousled haired Yvan is appealing enough to arouse sympathy for his plight – at first. His character has only one note, sung over and over. The movie lasts only 95 minutes, but seems about 35 minutes too long.`My Wife Is an Actress' begins well and deserves credit for approaching its topic head-on, without any dodges other than Yvan's becoming a `sports writer' rather than a less famous actor. The problem is attacked persistently, but there's no solution found. One ends with the feeling that this was a kind of therapy for Yvan Attal. He does get pretty close to his subject. Perhaps he was too close to it already. If he'd gotten any closer, things might have gotten nasty.