Ameile Reviews

One day in her apartment, Amelie accidentally stumbles upon a box of toys belonging to a previous male tenant, who is now a lonely grandfather. Consumed with impish yet benign devilment, Amelie contrives a secret way to return these treasures to their astonished owner. Thus Amelie finds her vocation: she will covertly improve the lives of those around her. But these comfortingly childlike games are interrupted by the very grown-up shock of falling in love with a handsome and mysterious stranger, Mathieu Kassovitz.

The most remarkable fantasy of this movie is the "Paris" that Jean-Pierre Jeunet conjures up. Bizarrely, it is supposed to be modern Paris, or at any rate the Paris of 1997, at the time of Princess Diana's death. But what with the accordion music and the cafes and the sepia tint that soaks through panoramic shots of the city skyline, it could be the Paris of 50 years before. You almost expect to see a Nazi staff car cruise past. This is a Paris with all modern life digitally removed: no McDonald's, no Pompidou Centre, certainly no glass BibliothÐ"Ёque Nationale towers or Grande Arche de la DÐ"©fense. It is a sumptuous confection of a city, a virtual-reality CGI-Paris, conceived on similar lines to Woody Allen's New York or Richard Curtis's London. This is intended to be the forum for light, elegant, witty romance in which the inappropriate realities of poverty and racism are magicked away - a disappearing act all the more notable considering the presence of Kassovitz (director of La Haine). Ð'- Peter Bradshaw

Set in Paris, the city we love when it sizzles and when it drizzles. Of course this is not a realistic modern Paris, and some critics have sniffed about that, too: It is clean, orderly, safe, colorful, has no social problems, and is peopled entirely by citizens who look like extras from "An American in Paris." Ð'- Roger Ebert

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