Amélie
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Year Released: 2001
Rating: 2.0
Did you ever hear a child tell you a story? They start off by reciting detail after detail after detail and there aren't a lot of pauses in between and there are a lot of and then's and it just goes on and on and eventually they remember something and, without respect to chronology, they just mention it - like that - and you're supposed to mentally integrate it into the entire run-on narrative. Amélie is like that: a child's version of a love story - shapeless, inventive, but ultimately tiresome. It tries real hard to be a cute stuffed animal you want to hug and adore, and Amélie herself (Audrey Tautou) is presented as this person you just have to love, though I, heartless warmonger I am, found her to be only moderately amusing, interpreting some of her 'good deeds' as psychologically cruel or just plain juvenile, and her 'new approach' to life completely meddlesome. Doesn't anyone realize she's a female stalker? Is stalking cute?
