Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Icon Film Distribution.
To mark its 20th anniversary, a brand new digital restoration of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s award-winning classic, Amélie, will be released on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital on September 1.
This cheery, light fantasy sees an endearing heroine as she triumphs over a sad childhood to bring cheer to the needful and joy for herself. It’s an appealing, quirky film, a fanciful comedy about a young woman who creates a world exclusively of her own making in which she discretely orchestrates the lives of the people around her.
Shot in over 80 Parisian locations, acclaimed director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children) brings into play his astute visionary style to capture the beautiful charm and mystery of modern-day Paris through the eyes of a lovely ingénue. The skillfully written screenplay is by Guillaume Laurant and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
As you watch, you have to smile. Audrey Tautou (Venus Beauty Institute, Dirty Pretty Things, The Da Vinci Code) is just perfect in the title role, as a fresh-faced waif, who grows up, starved for affection.
Amélie Poulain is a naïve girl in Paris with her own sense of justice, who knows a secret, but can’t keep it. Even though she’s caught up in her imaginative world, the young waitress decides to help people find happiness. It is this quest to spread cherfulness that takes her on a journey to finding love herself. Painfully shy, her accidental discovery is her gift for helping others.
She helps to change the lives of those around her, opening hearts to the adventure that is waiting for them, taking revenge on a cruel grocer, bringing together a couple who are afraid to show their longing for each other, and bringing the outside world to a reclusive painter and to her own father.
Amélie (in French with English sub-titles) is the one person who does have the power to change your life forever!
