Inside jokes about the film industry dominate this slight tale of ambition and romance at the Cannes Film Festival. Keith Carradine plays a first-time director who has sunk two years and all his money into a movie about the execution of murderer Gary Gilmore. With his last bit of cash, he flies himself and his picture to Cannes, but the film is seized by French customs. The wife of an Italian producer (Monica Vitti) helps him retrieve his work, and the two become embroiled in a passionate, yet ultimately ill-fated, affair. Carradine gets the first-time, self-important director mostly right, but the movie is so specific to the film industry that viewers may lose interest.
~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide