Amélie

reviewed Mon, 18 Feb 2002

 
Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) is cute and whimsical, and though the dry humor keeps it from being too cloying, it still got a bit too precious for me.  Partly it was the hype; everyone cooed over this movie like it was a baby duck or something.  Partly, I'm just in a bad mood where I don't want to see people being all happy and shit -- I know, I know, most of you are saying, "And that's different from how you normally are... how?"  I saw this weeks ago and haven't sent out a review partly because I didn't want to look so pissy and cranky, but hey, I am what I am.

Not that I disliked the movie -- I mostly enjoyed it -- but parts of it grated on me after a while.  It was too self-conscious [particularly Amélie's (Audrey Tautou) cloak-and-dagger courtship of shy Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz)], and plus there was the whole thing about her enjoying her job and her romantic life working out (despite her best attempts to scuttle it), which I so cannot relate to.  I wish I had been in a better mood; I think I might have enjoyed the movie a lot more.  Maybe I'll watch it again someday when I'm happier... or drunk, which is likely to happen sooner.
 
For some reason -- and this is totally just me being touchy -- it really offends me that director Jean-Pierre Jeunet digitally erased graffiti, trash, and parked cars from his Parisian streets. I understand that he wanted a fairy-tale atmosphere -- but in that case, go out and clean the damn streets!  It just seems wrong to alter the city artificially.  However, the traveling gnome made up for this offense.  I don't know why I find garden gnomes so funny... I just do.  (I wouldn't have thought they'd have them in France, though -- les horreurs de globalization!)
 
Why do I have the horrible feeling that this movie is going to be remade in English by Miramax, with Meg Ryan as a perky pixie named Emily working at a coffeehouse in Seattle?
 

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