Isabelle Adjani

The men in Ishtar (1987) want to believe they matter, and Isabelle Adjani’s Shirra Assel knows how to use that. She is funniest when she works on their vanity, making their eagerness to help look both useful and faintly embarrassing. We laughed at how readily they let her do it, because Adjani makes their weakness clear without making the men contemptible. Elaine May gets a sharper joke from this than from the complications of the intrigue.

The more familiar Adjani is the actor of emotional extremes, willing to make feeling physically difficult to watch. Her breakthrough with François Truffaut in L’Histoire d’Adèle H. (1975) was followed by Possession (1981), a defining example of that intensity. L’Été meurtrier (1983) gave her the vengeful Eliane Wieck. With Camille Claudel (1988) and La Reine Margot (1994), historical figures became a substantial part of the work. Ishtar sits between these films, evidence that the comic possibilities were there too.

Her physical expressiveness is also where our reservations begin. In Camille Claudel, the effort can become conspicuous enough to distract from the woman she is playing. We do not need Adjani to make every character easy company, and the extremes of Possession are central to what she offers. But the acting needs to keep our attention on what a character wants, and sometimes we become too aware of how hard she is working.

May gives her a useful discipline in Ishtar: Shirra wants something from the men, and Adjani’s playing stays attached to that purpose. Her effectiveness does not cure the film’s fussy plotting, and the friendship between the hopeless songwriters remains its strongest reason to watch. She contributes by understanding what makes them susceptible, without needing to dominate the comedy. Start with Ishtar for a less forbidding introduction, accepting that the intrigue will keep interrupting the people we want to watch.