There's so much here, and all of it delightful.
Amelie (2001)
Tomatometer
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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
A delectable French confection … sure to please America's sweet tooth.
I love watching movies that sweep me into a magical, happier place, and leave me with an all's-right -with- the-world contentment. Amelie did just that.
A movie whose embrace of cinema is so passionate it could be mistaken for an embrace of life.
Anyone who loves movies will have no defense against the seductions of Amelie -- either the film or the young woman.
So terrific it might single-handedly rescue the 'feel-good movie' from the garbage heap of overused and discredited phrases.
The more you know of the French way of, say, roasting a chicken or organizing a handbag, the funnier and more delightful you will find this film.
When Amelie's flights of fancy lose altitude, Tautou's lighter-than-air presence keeps them aloft.
Do not be surprised to see Amelie pull a Crouching Tiger and be nominated as both best foreign film and best film.
One leaves the theater thinking, as so many Americans of past generations have, 'Ah, there's always Paris.' And there will always be Amelie, too.
Delightful and original, the film conjures up a corner of Paris distinct and specific, yet fairy-tale fanciful.
Its whimsical, free-ranging nature is often enchanting; the first hour, in particular, is brimming with amiable, sardonic laughs. But there comes a point where you feel like Jeunet is forcing whimsy down your throat with a plunger.
This delight of whimsical wonderment is a feat of light-hearted genius.
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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