Amélie

''Amélie'' (also known as ''Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain''; ; en, The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain, italic=yes) is a 2001 French-language romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Written by Jeunet with Guillaume Laurant, the film is a whimsical depiction of contemporary Parisian life, set in Montmartre. It tells the story of a shy waitress, played by Audrey Tautou, who decides to change the lives of those around her for the better while dealing with her own isolation. The film features an ensemble cast of supporting roles, including Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Lorella Cravotta, Serge Merlin, Jamel Debbouze, Claire Maurier, Clotilde Mollet, Isabelle Nanty, Dominique Pinon, Artus de Penguern, Yolande Moreau, Urbain Cancelier, and Maurice Bénichou.

The film was theatrically released in France on 25 April 2001 by UGC-Fox Distribution and in Germany on 16 August 2001 by Prokino Filmverleih. The film received critical acclaim, with praise for Tautou's performance, the cinematography, production design, and writing. ''Amélie'' won Best Film at the European Film Awards, four César Awards, including Best Film and Best Director, and two British Academy Film Awards including Best Original Screenplay. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay. The film was a commercial success, grossing $174.2 million worldwide against a budget of $10 million, and is one of the biggest international successes for a French film.

Plot

Amélie Poulain is born in June 1974 and brought up by eccentric parents who – incorrectly believing that she has a heart defect – decide to home-school her. To cope with her loneliness, Amélie develops an active imagination and a mischievous personality. When Amélie is six, her mother, Amandine, is killed when a suicidal Canadian tourist jumps from the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris and lands on her. As a result, her father Raphaël withdraws more and more from society. Amélie leaves home at the age of 18 and becomes a waitress at the Café des 2 Moulins in Montmartre, which is staffed and frequented by a collection of eccentrics. She is single and lets her imagination roam freely, finding contentment in simple pleasures like dipping her hand into grain sacks, cracking crème brûlée with a spoon, and skipping stones along the Canal Saint-Martin.

On 31 August 1997, startled by the news of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Amélie drops a plastic perfume-stopper, which dislodges a wall tile and accidentally reveals an old metal box which contains childhood memorabilia hidden by a boy who lived in her apartment decades earlier. Amélie resolves to track down the boy and return the box to him. She promises herself that if it makes him happy, she will devote her life to bringing happiness to others.

After asking the apartment's concierge and several old tenants about the boy's identity, Amélie meets her reclusive neighbour, Raymond Dufayel, an artist with brittle bone disease who replicates Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 1881 painting ''Luncheon of the Boating Party'' every year. He recalls the boy's name as "Bretodeau". Amélie finds the man, Dominique Bretodeau, and surreptitiously gives him the box. Moved to tears by the discovery and the memories it holds, Bretodeau resolves to reconcile with his estranged daughter and the grandson he has never met. Amélie happily embarks on her new mission.

Amélie secretly executes complex schemes that positively affect the lives of those around her. She escorts a blind man to the Métro station while giving him a rich description of the street scenes he passes. She persuades her father to follow his dream of touring the world by stealing his garden gnome and having a flight attendant friend mail pictures of it posing with landmarks from all over the world. She starts a romance between her hypochondriacal co-worker Georgette and Joseph, a patron of the cafe. She convinces Madeleine Wallace, the concierge of her block of flats, that the husband who abandoned her had sent her a final conciliatory love letter just before his accidental death years before. She plays practical jokes on Collignon, the nasty greengrocer. Mentally exhausted, Collignon no longer abuses his meek but good-natured assistant Lucien. A delighted Lucien takes charge at the grocery stand.

Mr. Dufayel, having observed Amélie, begins a conversation with her about his painting. Although he has copied the same Renoir painting 20 times, he has never quite captured the look of the girl drinking a glass of water. They discuss the meaning of this character, and over several conversations, Amélie begins projecting her loneliness onto the image. Dufayel recognizes this and uses the girl in the painting to push Amélie to examine her attraction to a quirky young man, Nino Quincampoix, who collects the discarded photographs of strangers from passport photo booths. When Amélie bumps into Nino a second time, she realizes she is falling in love with him. He accidentally drops a photo album in the street. Amélie retrieves it.

Amélie plays a cat-and-mouse game with Nino around Paris before returning his treasured album anonymously. After arranging a meeting at the 2 Moulins, Amélie panics and tries to deny her identity. Her co-worker, Gina, concerned for Amélie's well-being, screens Nino for her; Joseph's comment about this misleads Amélie to believe she has lost Nino to Gina. It takes Dufayel's insight to give her the courage to pursue Nino, resulting in a romantic night together and the beginning of a relationship. The film ends as Amélie experiences a moment of happiness she has found for herself.

Cast

Production

In his DVD commentary, Jeunet explains that he originally wrote the role of Amélie for the English actress Emily Watson. In that first draft, Amélie's father was an Englishman living in London. However, Watson's French was not strong, and when she became unavailable to shoot the film, owing to a conflict with the filming of ''Gosford Park'', Jeunet rewrote the screenplay for a French actress. Audrey Tautou was the first actress he auditioned having seen her on the poster for the 1999 film ''Venus Beauty Institute''.

Filming took place from March 2 to July 7, 2000 mainly in Paris. The Café des 2 Moulins (15 Rue Lepic, Montmartre, Paris) where Amélie works is a real place.

The filmmakers made use of computer-generated imagery (including computer animation), and a digital intermediate. The studio scenes were filmed in the MMC Studios Coloneum in Cologne (Germany). The film shares many of the themes in its plot with the second half of the 1994 film '' Chungking Express''.

Release

The film was released in France, Belgium, and French-speaking western Switzerland in April 2001, with subsequent screenings at various film festivals followed by releases around the world. It received limited releases in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australasia later in 2001.

Cannes Film Festival selector Gilles Jacob described ''Amélie'' as "uninteresting", and therefore it was not screened at the festival, although the version he viewed was an early cut without music. The absence of ''Amélie'' at the festival caused something of a controversy because of the warm welcome by the French media and audience in contrast with the reaction of the selector. David Martin-Jones, in an article in '' Senses of Cinema'', stated that the film "earsits national renchidentity on its sleeve" and that this attracted both audiences of mainstream movies and those of arthouse ones.

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 89% approval rating based on 186 reviews, with an average rating of 8.10/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The feel-good ''Amélie'' is a lively, fanciful charmer, showcasing Audrey Tautou as its delightful heroine." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 69 out of 100 based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Alan Morrison from ''Empire'' Online gave ''Amélie'' five stars and called it "one of the year's best, with crossover potential along the lines of ''Cyrano de Bergerac'' and ''Il Postino''. Given its quirky heart, it might well surpass them all". Paul Tatara of CNN praised ''Amélie''s playful nature. In his review, he wrote, "Its whimsical, free-ranging nature is often enchanting; the first hour, in particular, is brimming with amiable, sardonic laughs".

The film was attacked by critic Serge Kaganski of ''Les Inrockuptibles'' for an unrealistic and picturesque vision of a bygone French society with few ethnic minorities. Jeunet dismissed the criticism by pointing out that the photo collection contains pictures of people from numerous ethnic backgrounds, and that Jamel Debbouze, who plays Lucien, is of Moroccan descent.

Box office

The film opened on 432 screens in France and grossed 43.2 million French Franc ($6.2 million) in its opening week, placing it at number one. It stayed in the top 10 for 22 weeks. It was the highest-grossing film in France for the year with a gross of $41 million.

Accolades

The film was selected by ''The New York Times'' as one of "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". The film placed No. 2 in ''Empire'' magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema". '' Paste'' magazine ranked it second on its list of the 50 Best Movies of the Decade (2000–2009). In August 2016, ''BBC
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