Amelie 2001
This is a cute, romantic, bizarre French movie about a young woman who tries to find meaning in her life by doing good deeds. It has a lot of fun with its characters: in one scene it stops to say that her father enjoys taking his tools out of his tool chest, cleaning out the tool chest and putting the tools back. As a child you can guess that Amelie wasn’t exactly nurtured. As such she grows up pretty much withdrawn from others, preferring to be alone. When she finds out that she can have a role in making other people happy, she also becomes happier. Eventually she gets tangled up in a romance herself even though she’s never found relationships satisfying before.
There isn’t really a lot that happens, but it’s still enjoyable to watch. In my opinion the romance doesn’t really work that well although it’s fun to watch as she carefully allows it to happen. The side characters are what make the movie worth watching and that aspect of it is fun. In some ways it reminds me of Ally McBeal but with less angst. So if you like Ally McBeal’s escapism and eccentric characters you will probably like this.
I’ll give it a B.