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Amèlie (2001): 7/10

Poster (c) Universal Studios
If you’ve ever done something good for someone else just for the fun of it, then you can easily relate to Amèlie, the main character in Amèlie. She’s innocent, naïve, and shy. But she finds an old box of “treasures” hidden in her flat and decides to return it to the boy who left it there fifty years ago. The “boy” is Bretodeau (Maurice Bénichou), and Amèlie (Audrey Tautou) decides that if Bretodeau is glad, then she will continue to do good deeds for those around her. He is ecstatic, so Amèlie keeps her end of the deal.

Amèlie is sweetly touching, but goes for the low-key effect and really does feel like a foreign film. A lot of times, I forget during the course and it seems like the actors are saying the subtitled English words. Not this time. I’m thinking of Run Lola Run in specific. That seemed to be a quality American film (haha, right?).

Amèlie decides to return a photo album to Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz). She completes her deed but ends up falling in love (surprise surprise). When Amèlie was delivering the album to Nino (and other times), I was surprised on how complex her schemes were. She didn’t explode with talent like that throughout the film, so it surprised me.

Tautou is very good as Amèlie, I love her smile. She displayed emotions very well. Kassovitz was also fabulous; people like that need to get more work that comes out here in the U.S. Everyone else involved in the picture is very gifted (including Rufus, who plays Amèlie’s father) and talented. Pictures like this don’t come out very often.

Movies like Amèlie are sure to be crowd-pleasers. Which it is. Its crowd-pleasing attitude was taken with a little arrogance, but it still managed to keep a goofy smile on your face for 122 minutes. Speaking of the runtime, I found it very hard to sit through, for some reason. I enjoyed all of it, but seemed unnecessary. If one of the subplots about Amèlie’s escapades were taken out, it would have been better.

It also had a good amount of humor. I loved the beginning, when we learn about Amèlie’s childhood, and we learn what everyone’s likes and dislikes were. It seemed ridiculous yet true. Some of the humor, and the whole movie, faltered during the last hour-the rather quick pace of the first hour slowed down a lot and brought down my experience of the film.

Amèlie is a gentle yet entertaining non-Hollywood film that’s a sure crowd-pleaser.

Rated R for sexual situations.

Review Date: December 25, 2002