While this is generally the kind of overly-whimsical, light-hearted yet pretentious, foreign art-house crapola I tend to avoid, I gotta say this was pretty good
Amelie (2001)
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work ![]()
Reviews Counted:139
Fresh:125
Rotten:14
Average Rating:7.9/10
Consensus: The feel-good Amelie is a lively, fanciful charmer, showcasing Audrey Tautou as its delightful heroine.
Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
US Box Office: $33,177,691
Synopsis: Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) is a young woman who glides through the streets of Paris as quietly as a mouse. With wide eyes and a tiny grin, she sees the world in a magical light, discovering... Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) is a young woman who glides through the streets of Paris as quietly as a mouse. With wide eyes and a tiny grin, she sees the world in a magical light, discovering minor miracles every day. A shy and reserved person whose favorite moments are spent alone skimming stones into the water, Amélie was raised by a pair of eccentrics who falsely diagnosed her with a heart problem at the age of six and so limited her exposure to the outside world. Now a free and independent woman, Amélie wears a bob that curls in every direction and dresses in red. With a job in a café and an aptitude for spying on her neighbors, Amélie entertains herself by enacting a series of homemade, kindhearted practical jokes. She returns a long-forgotten box of childhood knickknacks to its proper owner, she sends her father's garden troll on a trip around the world, and she creates a love connection at the café between the hypochondriac druggist and a beer-drinking old grouch. But when the day is done, Amélie finds one stone unturned, and decides to work her magic on the quirky object of her affections, Nino Quincampoix (Matthieu Kassovitz), whom she has never met. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who codirected DELICATESSEN and THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN with Marc Caro) presents AMÉLIE, an aesthetically gorgeous and inventive film. The rich, glowing color scheme is offset by flashbacks in black and white archival footage that give short biographies of each character. A soft-spoken narrator guides viewers through this enlightening fairy tale, which sometimes speeds through the streets and other times drifts in slow motion. AMÉLIE is humorous, questioning, and strange, and it will change the lives of all who watch it, if only for a short while after leaving Amélie's world. [More]
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Lorella Cravotta
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Lorella Cravotta, Claire Maurier, Isabelle Nanty, Dominique Pinon, Serge Merlin, Jamel Debbouze, Yolande Moreau, Urbain Cancellier
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Screenwriter: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Guillaume Laurant
Producer: Claudie Ossard
Composer: Yann Tiersen
Studio: Miramax Films
Reviews for Amelie
Tautou's inherent charm, garnished with a gaze of innocent sexuality, lends the character of Amélie the perfect recipe for audiences to take her to their collective hearts.
Tautou captures the innocence, joie-de-vivre, and even the delightful naiveté of...do you notice me using all these French words?
The funniest foreign language film I've seen, 'Amélie" is a life-affirming satire that transcends reality.
It will give you the kind of feeling that you wish you could bottle up and carry with you for the rest of your days.
In all, Tautou is the most adorable Frenchwoman to grace movie screens since we first laid eyes on La Binoche in The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Full of smart images, powered by hope and humanity, Amelie is a shining celebration of the possibilities of love.
Amelie is filled with memorable characters brought to life by a terrific cast, and nobody is better than [Audrey] Tautou, the radiant beauty in the title role.
Amelie is both brave and wise enough to consider happiness an emotion worthy of artistic taste.
Amelie’s only major crime is how dull it can often be even while being so deliberately elaborate.
Child’s Play---Leisure and imagination fill the streets of Paris in ‘Amélie ‘
Latest News for Amelie
July 15, 2009:
RT Interview: David Yates on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
When David Yates was hired to direct Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, fans took one look at his TV-heavy resume and panicked that he wouldn't be able to bring the same... More...
June 24, 2005:
Kassovitz Heads Out to "Babylon A.D."
Actor/writer/director Mathieu Kassovitz ("Hate," "Gothika," "The Crimson Rivers") will write and direct a movie based on the Maurice Dentac novel... More...
May 19, 2005:
Get a Year-Early Peek at "The Da Vinci Code"
The Quicktime Movie Trailers page brings the very first teaser for next year's "The Da Vinci Code." Based on the overwhelmingly popular novel by Dan Brown, "The... More...
August 20, 2001:
Amélie wasn't selected for Cannes because, Jeunet says, he was told it wasn't the kind of movie he should be making. ![]()
More...
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