Resnais said that he was drawn to Ayckbourn's play Life of Riley by its portrayal of a group of characters who are constantly mistaken about the behaviour and motives of the others and about their own; it questions whether people really match the descriptions which others give of them.

[5] For the third film in succession, Resnais (using his writer's pseudonym of Alex Reval) worked with the writer/director Laurent Herbiet on the screenplay of Aimer, boire et chanter, remaining faithful to the text of Ayckbourn's play (except for some shortening) and preserving its English setting in Yorkshire.

[5] In choosing four of his cast with whom he had previously worked (Sabine Azéma, André Dussollier, Hippolyte Girardot, and Michel Vuillermoz), Resnais was conscious of assigning them roles in this film which would allow them to give performances distinctly different from what they had done before.

[6] Resnais wanted to film in a studio in order to preserve a theatrical style of décor which matched Ayckbourn's dialogue, but budget constraints made it impossible to build full sets of the houses of the various couples.

Initial critical responses to the film among English-language reviewers were divided between those who appreciated its light-heartedness and fun, rare among festival entries,[8] and those who found it laboured and tedious in the theatricality of its format and the mannered style of performance.

This is a wry critique of the theatrical mode whose ample pleasures derive from minute touches which offer a reminder of how the camera, its placement and a delicate edit here or there, can charge a banal text with added emotion and import.