Why The Taste of Others goes beyond what we expect of the ensemble romance genre

There are no doubt a thousand French movies like this one, English, too, mutatis mutandis, but "The Taste of Others" is one of the best of its type - by no means perfect, but entertaining and thoughtful above and beyond what we expect from the genre. The genre? Ensemble pieces that follow several separate but related story lines, in which the characters change and evolve (usually improbably), learning about their own limitations and prejudices and bonding over time with those whom they'd scorned at the outset. This genre goes back at least to Shakespeare, probably to Terence and Plautus and in more recent movies: think of Crash, 4 Weddings, any English Hugh Grant comedy. This recent (2000) French film - director Agnes Jaoui, which may explain the relative lack of sexist stereotyping - the male characters don't all end up with much younger, hotter mates - focuses on a dull and conformist businessman, his bodyguard, and his somewhat younger chauffeur: the latter two who both fall for the same bar-girl part-time drug dealer, and the businessman falls for a 40+ actress - at first he's far too conventional and uncultured for her, but as it turns out he's far more sensitive to feelings than she thought, and she realizes she's underestimated him and treated him cruelly. She repents, all - or almost all - end up better off, though not necessarily happy, at the end (as in most Shakespeare comedies, btw); parts of the movie involve discussion of why the theater troupe should do more comedy, less tragedy - people don't like tragedy, the business bluntly but accurately says - and the final scene of the movie is a wonderful literary joke (spoiler here): we see famous last moments of Hedda Gabler, Hedda shoots herself - and then the curtain calls, and she sees the businessman cheering the audience, and as we step out of the frame tragedy turns to comedy in a flash.