SOURCE: Romney, Jonathan. “Cartoon Hell.” New Statesman 129, no. 4502 (4 September 2000): 33.

In the following review, Romney discusses the depiction of cynical disaffection in the novel Extension du domaine de la lutte and its film adaptation.

The first time I saw Extension du domaine de la lutte (aka Whatever), a French film marketing officer tried to persuade me that it wasn't worth seeing. “He's such a horrible man,” she said, and visibly shuddered. I asked her who she meant. Was it the director Philippe Harel, who also plays the lead role, or the character himself (referred to in the voice-over as “Our Hero”)? Or did she mean Michel Houellebecq, the author of the novel on which the film is based, and whom Harel is manifestly impersonating—greasy, combed-over hair, gingerly held cigarette and all? She shrugged, as if to say that they were all pretty much of a muchness. Indeed, in...