Despite being caught in her imaginative world, Amelie, a young waitress, decides to help people find happiness. Her quest to spread joy leads her on a journey where she finds true love.
Amélie (Audrey Tautou) is a lonely kid. She had an isolating childhood and thus developed an overactive imagination. As a young adult, she waitresses in a restaurant but still lives a lonely life. However, she finds an old tin box filled with childhood treasures in her apartment. She tracks down the person who used to live in her flat and finds great satisfaction in this act of kindness. She continues to do what she can to make other people happier in their lives.
“Amélie” is one of the first foreign language films I remember seeing. I greatly related to Amélie and still do to this day. Like Amélie, I had a lonely childhood and now try to find life’s simple pleasures. I’m definitely not as creative as her, though, but her creativity is genuinely unique. Her schemes are truly elaborate and so fun to see play out on-screen. Whether it is to return something to a stranger, to get two people together, or to teach someone a lesson, each scheme is unique and inventive.
Despite her goal of making people happy, her personality hasn’t changed. She is still pretty quiet and introverted. She doesn’t interact too much with the people whose lives she is trying to improve; she observes them from a distance.
In this film, Paris is more colorful and whimsical. The setting almost feels like a fantasy. The visuals, color, and camera movement make the audience understand what being in Amélie’s brain is like. The constant narration also helps there. This was the first film I saw that broke the fourth wall, as she occasionally looks and winks at the camera.
The film eventually becomes a love story once Amélie meets Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz). Although she is scared to confront him, she devises an elaborate scheme to find him again when she accidentally loses his photo album book.
We find out that Nino has a unique hobby: collecting people’s discarded pictures and putting them in a photo book. Once his photo book is returned to him, he seems to know the girl behind it all is remarkable and seeks her out. And finally, they get their happy ending.
“Amélie” is nothing short of a delightful film full of unique characters. The quirkiness embedded in this film may not be for everyone, but most will enjoy this feel-good story. It’s hard not to be charmed by it.
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