Amelie: Movie Review, DVD Review (2001)
9/21/2007 Posted by Admin
The eccentric, shy waif (Originally published 2001)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, written by Guillaume Laurant, in French with English subtitles, 115 minutes, rated R.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s "Amelie” was one of last year’s best films, a smart, quirky crowd-pleaser from France that’s at once touching and hilarious, especially in its opening moments, which follow the pitfalls and absurdities of young Amelie’s life as she steps boldly into a world fraught with cruelity and injustice.
Born to eccentric parents--a father who rarely touched her, a strict mother accidentally crushed by a suicidal stranger--Amelie (Audrey Tautou) grows into a shy, 23-year-old waif living a loney life in Paris.
A waitress by trade, she stumbles upon her true calling by accident. Behind a loose tile in her bathroom is a tin box filled with a boy’s childhood keepsakes, items Amelie herself would want returned if they were her own. Launching into action, she tracks down the box’s owner, now a grown man who’s stunned by this act of kindness and brought to tears of joy.
Filled with joy herself, Amelie becomes a modern-day Miss Lonelyhearts, fluttering about her Montmartre neighborhood and fixing everyone’s life but her own. But when she meets the mysterious Nino Quincampoix (Mathieu Kassovitz), a fellow eccentric whose spare time is spent reassembling other people’s lives with his scrapbook, Amelie’s heart begins to soar--she’s found her man.
The problem is that she doesn’t seem to know it.
Working from a script by Guillaume Laurant, Jeunet strengthens his narrative with a string of unexpected complexities and a star-making performance from the terrific Tautou, who recalls a young Audrey Hepburn and who deserves the same cross-over success Penelope Cruz enjoyed three years ago, when she appeared in Fina Torres’ “Woman on Top.”
Grade: A
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Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, written by Guillaume Laurant, in French with English subtitles, 115 minutes, rated R.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s "Amelie” was one of last year’s best films, a smart, quirky crowd-pleaser from France that’s at once touching and hilarious, especially in its opening moments, which follow the pitfalls and absurdities of young Amelie’s life as she steps boldly into a world fraught with cruelity and injustice.
Born to eccentric parents--a father who rarely touched her, a strict mother accidentally crushed by a suicidal stranger--Amelie (Audrey Tautou) grows into a shy, 23-year-old waif living a loney life in Paris.
A waitress by trade, she stumbles upon her true calling by accident. Behind a loose tile in her bathroom is a tin box filled with a boy’s childhood keepsakes, items Amelie herself would want returned if they were her own. Launching into action, she tracks down the box’s owner, now a grown man who’s stunned by this act of kindness and brought to tears of joy.
Filled with joy herself, Amelie becomes a modern-day Miss Lonelyhearts, fluttering about her Montmartre neighborhood and fixing everyone’s life but her own. But when she meets the mysterious Nino Quincampoix (Mathieu Kassovitz), a fellow eccentric whose spare time is spent reassembling other people’s lives with his scrapbook, Amelie’s heart begins to soar--she’s found her man.
The problem is that she doesn’t seem to know it.
Working from a script by Guillaume Laurant, Jeunet strengthens his narrative with a string of unexpected complexities and a star-making performance from the terrific Tautou, who recalls a young Audrey Hepburn and who deserves the same cross-over success Penelope Cruz enjoyed three years ago, when she appeared in Fina Torres’ “Woman on Top.”
Grade: A
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September 23, 2007 at 12:23 PM
Good review. I'm digging it...
Erik
Movie-Source.com
December 7, 2009 at 12:44 AM
'Gotta be honest: I gravitate toward nearly any movie filmed in Paris. When it turns out to be good, that's all the better. :)