By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * * * )
Killjoys, curmudgeons and people who loathe the French from the Rainbow Warrior to the Rugby World Cup, read no further. Those who want to brighten, to cheer, to illuminate the last days of winter; those who yearn for fun, whimsy, escape,
get to your video store now.
Amelie (Audrey Tatou) has a sad childhood. Her doctor father does not hug or kiss her, he touches her only during her checkups — which makes her heart beat so fast he thinks she is sick. Her mother jumps off the towers of Notre Dame.
So Amelie grows up lonely and alone, a waitress in a Paris bistro, until Princess Diana's death changes her life. The shock causes Amelie to drop a bottletop, which leads her in a roundabout way to an old box in which a boy hid his treasures. Tracking him down and returning the box, Amelie finds her mission: she will go to any lengths to make people happy.
She paints word-pictures of a busy street for a blind man and pretends to find long-lost love letters to her concierge from her dead husband. Then she meets Nino, who works in a porn shop and collects discarded snapshots from railway-station photo booths. Amelie likes Nino. She wants him but cannot find a way to engineer a meeting, a relationship.
But the plot is really of little matter. The real delights of this comedy are the oddballs that Amelie attracts — the hypochondriac tobacconist, the tyrannical grocer, the kindly stripper, the failed writer; the crazy, off-the-wall way in which the film is made, as director Jean-Pierre Jeunet breaks every rule in the Moviemaker's Manual; and the Hepburn-like exuberance and charm of its star.
If you live, breathe and know how to laugh, you will love Amelie.
Rental video, DVD: Today
• DVD features: movie (115min); commentary, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Two-disc set was promised overseas but has been delayed indefinitely.
