'Amélie' lights up Paris fairyland with romance, charm
"Have you seen 'Amélie' yet?" a friend asked me last week. She'd been to an advance screening, and was all aglow. "I really needed that movie."
"Amélie," the absolutely beguiling romantic comedy from French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen," "City of Lost Children"), may indeed be just the tonic for demoralized spirits. What could be more fun than an adorable Frenchwoman in cute outfits who sets out to improve the world? From its first frames — a picturesque Paris street glowing in golden morning light, a summer breeze causing wineglasses to dance on a tablecloth — it's clear we're in magical territory.
Our guide through this fairyland is Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou), a solitary young woman who works in a Paris cafe and visits her widowed father on weekends. One day, a chance discovery in her apartment leads to a "surge of love" within her. (Yes, this is magic all right; most of us just find dust bunnies.) Henceforth Amélie decides to help mankind by quirkily interfering in the lives of those around her. All this results in happiness and eventual love, even for Amélie.
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Jeunet's camera slyly introduces Tautou: She's in the cafe, facing away from us, then slowly turns around — and, oh, that face. A pixie-ish combination of Audrey Hepburn and Juliette Binoche, Tautou sports a perky Louise Brooks bob, big melted-chocolate eyes, a breathy, high-pitched voice and a turned-up smile. It's not exactly an acting tour de force — the movie mostly just requires Tautou to be devastatingly cute — but she's only 23 and the camera loves her. (Tautou's not exactly an unknown gamine-of-the-month: She won a Cesar — the French Oscar — for "most promising young actress" last year for her work in "Venus Beauty Institute.")
Jeunet intricately constructs the film as both Amélie's story (and the intersecting stories of those whose lives she touches) and a love letter to picture-perfect Paris. It's a warm-and-fuzzy valentine, shot through with plenty of red (in the costumes, in Amélie's red-wallpapered apartment) and a generous sprinkling of whimsy.
Amélie's bedside lamp is a pig holding an umbrella, who at one point joins in the commentary. And when Amélie beholds the man she will love (Mathieu Kassovitz as the hopeful-looking Nino, who collects photo-booth strips), she visibly melts, turning into a splash of water on the cafe floor.
Surprisingly, this doesn't feel too cutesy, but perfectly reasonable: Jeunet's world contains just enough darkness (we see early scenes of the death of Amélie's mother, and of the young Amélie's loneliness) that the sweetness is welcome and deserved.
"Amélie" is given charming texture throughout by characters sharing their likes and dislikes: Amélie's father (Rufus) loves to peel away large strips of wallpaper; Amélie herself loves to plunge her hand into a sack of grain, or to crack the top of a crème brûlée with a spoon. Let me add one of mine: I love watching movies that sweep me into a magical, happier place, and leave me with an all's-right-with-the-world contentment. "Amélie" did just that.
Moira Macdonald can be reached at 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com.