The movie Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (literal translation: The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain) revolves around Amélie Poulain(Audrey Tautou), a 22-year-old introvert. Amélie’s childhood frustrations propelled her to devise a defense mechanism that she keeps until adulthood: she created her own insular world. Misdiagnosed with a non-existing heart condition, her upbringing is starved of human interaction—and caused her to grow up as a shy and reserved woman who lives a quiet, albeit ordinary life. Although she has a few acquaintances, she prefers to keep all of them at an arm’s distance. Amélie frequently shuns other people’s company, and cultivated an unusually active imagination born out of a childhood of loneliness. Inadvertently, she began to crawl out of her shell when a pivotal moment—involving a perfume cap, a tin box, and the death of Princess Diana—happened in her life, and she accidentally resolves her own issues as she resolved to fix other’s.
Amélie is a whimsical, somewhat idyllic movie that frequently totters at the tip of fantasy, and pulls back at the very last second. The director’s (Jean-Pierre Jeunet) trademark quirky humor is prevalent all throughout the movie: the extreme camera angles and cuts, the talking pictures and portraits, and the lead character’s too-short haircut. The cinematography is exceptionally unique and bright: it has a lomo-esque quality that projects an illusion of an old, only-in-the-movies storybook setting. The script is sentimental without being cheesy, humorous with the faintest touch of romance. Every subplot is tightly sewn, the edges flawlessly sandpapered that it glides smoothly down your throat, and you won’t realize that it’s lodged itself in your heart.
Tautou’s performance is, without question, the movie’s most dazzling ingredient. She expresses much with such few words, revealing just enough of her character to make the viewer understand and know her. At the same time she stays mysterious that the viewer must keep waiting for her to fully come out. She successfully lures viewers inside her eccentric existence, a world of curious and often funny happenstance. Her haircut did not diminish her beauty; rather it highlighted her doe eyes and secretive little smile. Amélie is ultimately kindhearted, and with just the right amount of mischief to keep her character realistic.
Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain is a many-layered movie, a hodgepodge of touches of suspense, comedy, and romance—a formula guaranteed to make the viewer glued to his or her seat until the movie credits go up.
View trailer here.