Of course, all of this whimsy falls apart in an instant if Amelie can’t win our heart. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel’s Paris is brightly awash in cotton-candy pastels scrubbed squeaky clean and inviting, and the Yann Tiersen soundtrack supplies a worthy theme for Amelie’s elfin expeditions. He takes frequent and colorful side trips to examine unusual details, such as showing each character’s likes and dislikes. One never quite knows what is going to happen next, and is rarely disappointed by the wondrous things that Jeunet pulls from his magical director’s hat. Here he returns to the lightness and wonder that marked his Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children and with screenwriter Guillaume Laurent uses magical realism to create an effervescent world of unrequited love, suicidal goldfish, photo booth intrigue and elaborate courtship schemes. So her strategies for meeting Nino are as convoluted and intriguing as the means she uses to enhance other peoples’ lives and the practical jokes she plays on a local grocer who cruelly demeans his assistant.ĭirector Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s previous film Alien: Resurrection was a decidedly darker (and unsuccessful) departure from his prior works. Amelie is smitten – but just as her father didnt judge her heart strong enough to withstand the rigors of a "normal" life, neither does she trust that it can bear the demands of love. His hobby is collecting discarded picture fragments from automated photo booths and reassembling them in a scrapbook. Then she meets Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), a clerk in a porno shop. Thus begins her new part-time job and full-time philosophy: making people happy.īut Amelie’s own joy remains elusive. Amelie decides to find its owner and reunite him with the toys of his youth.
She discovers a tin box hidden at her flat that contains artifacts of a young boy’s long-ago childhood. Her mother dies (in a blackly hilarious scene) and she’s raised in the countryside until she’s old enough to leave home and take a waitress job at the Two Windmills cafe in Paris. He diagnoses a heart condition and she’s kept away from other human contact. She longs for her father’s affection, so much so that her heart races every time he uses his stethoscope to examine her (he’s a physician). The film starts with Amelie (rhymes with "Family") as a young child, born to a neurotic mother and emotionally distant father. It’s a rich and imaginative work that delights from the opening credits, a sweet confection that should be savored more than once. Adjectives like magical and charming can only approximate its ability to create an appealing fantasy world. Amelie (Le Fabuleux destin d’Amelie Poulain) is one that does. In recent years few features have warranted such a buzz of expectation.
#Amelie movie movie#
Few experiences compare with the sense of anticipation that hums through a movie theater when the lights fade and a film begins.
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