Emilie: "Why are you barefoot in your nightie?"
By Pierre Salvadori
With Audrey Tautou, Nathalie Baye, Sami Bouajila
I've always been fond of letters. This film to me began on an interesting but oft-repeated trope--the case of mistaken identity. And how better to carry this through than in a correspondence? Seeing that the charming Audrey Tautou was a protagonist in this film as well, I needed no further reason to watch it.
This is a comedy reminiscent of Moliere's comedies, full of ironic, farcical, dramatic situations which are hilarious because of just how earnest each character is yet as a viewer we can see just how flimsy and ridiculous the situations that so worry them are. Yet it's never cruel, but hilarious in the way it can be to see a little cat chasing what it thinks is a mouse but is actually a ball of fur and that tragic and hilarious look of bewilderment when it finally pins the ball down and starts choking in the dust instead of biting into a juicy mouse.
The film begins with a letter written by Jean, an electrician working for the quirky and energetic Emilie (Audrey Tautou). At night in his apartment we discover he has fallen madly in love with Emilie and struggles to pen her the most appropriate letter detailing his strong and selfless love for her, a letter which Emilie receives and by chance reads in front of him. After laughing at the superfluous language in it, she crunches it into a ball and throws it at the trashcan, watches it miss, and Jean who is nearby has to pick it up and put it in the trash. Thus begins this film, as the innocent letter begins to play a role far more than the writer had intended it, as Emilie decides the best way to heal her mother from a bad divorce with her father is through sending her the same letter to boost her ego.
I think that this type of comedy is something I have seen mostly in French cinema -- of mistaken identity and all the hilarious scenes that can come out of it. I remember something similar in Dinner of Fools which I didn't enjoy at the time, maybe because of the acting or something. But in this film it worked for me -- as it managed in a very humorous way to touch on very pertinent situations we encounter, perhaps less humorously, from day to day.
What made this film especially strong to me was how it didn't hesitate to make everyone look like the fool, in essence, deconstructing all the typical roles we expect from people: the mother-daughter relationship, Jean who Emilie much to her chagrin discovers is an academic and knows half a dozen languages fluently but still cannot bring himself to communicate to a loved ideal (her) without using flowery language and penning her letters, Emilie, who devoutly thinks of herself as a kind of scrappy, generous, lovable girl but acts in completely dishonest psychopathic ways at times (which her mother pinpoints out as, "Your father said you could break someone's leg just to make them dance the way you want them to"). In short, the characters, while in many ways stereotypical characters, were stereotypical in an absolutely convincing way (with the exception of Paulette, one of the hairdressers working in the salon Emilie co-owns, whose role in the film I didn't quite see as justifiable).
All in all, a sharp tongue-in-the-cheek romantic comedy. I chose the snap I did because it contains the ingredients of what was to be a romantic meal, and to me it seemed this film did exactly what was shown in the snapshot-- took the perfectly arranged food and dumped it in the garbage. Romance is always in its essence, the film conveys, slightly ridiculous.
I liked: The snappy dialogue and absurd situations. Made for a lot of laughter. I enjoyed the themes, and the casting as well.
I disliked: Some characters seemed extraneous. A little over bloated, the film would have been better cut 10 or 15 minutes short.
67/100
A funny, rather satirical look at mistaken identities and romance. Not the most intellectual film by any means but certainly an enjoyable way to pass time.
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