The Sporadic Chronicles

“So, my little Amélie, you don’t have bones of glass. You can take life’s knocks. If you let this chance pass, eventually, your heart will become as dry and brittle as my skeleton.”
– Raymond Dufayel

SYNOPSIS: Amélie is a shy waitress in a Montmartre café. After returning a long-lost childhood treasure to a former occupant of her apartment, and seeing the effect it has on him, she decides to set out on a mission to make others happy and in the meantime pursues a quirky guy who collects discarded photo booth pictures. – via IMDB

I have looked at this cassette and later DVD for so many years. Since it came out. It has always caught my eye, I have always wondered about it, and yet I have never gotten to it. This Blind Spot was the ideal place to ensure that I finally got to seeing it, and I am so glad that I did. Despite the fact that I am not a fan of French at all (putting it mildly), this movie is so touching, quirky, endearing and immensely entertaining. The humour is so juvenile and really has you giggling like a conspirator throughout, and I think that Audrey Tautou was absolutely perfectly cast to play the delightful Amélie. She was adorable and had just enough naivete working for her to pass it off as the real thing. I was always looking forward to seeing what the hell she would get up to and how she was going to pull it off. She was sweet and had a sense of justice going that was quite childlike but it worked, she had an imagination that was astounding, and her fascination with Nino was adorable – their little courtship was one of the better executed ones that I have ever watched. You were rooting for them the whole way through. They were both so weird and quirky that ultimately they would do nothing but complement each other. Mathieu Kassovitz was just amazing opposite Tautou. I liked the supporting cast, too, as they all contributed something to the story. I was a fan of Lucien, humble and a little dim-witted but full of love and excitement for life, and Raymond Dufayel was wonderful as Amélie’s encouraging friend who always had a few words to share, whether she found them useful or offensive. I had to laugh at Collignon and the suffering that he was (rightfully, in my opinion) put through for being such a douche. Amélie truly did some beautiful things for the people around her, and to see how all her schemes came to fruition was a thing of wonder (except you really have to wonder about the whole concept of Georgette and Joseph).