Quick review/advice: watch the first 35-40 and last 4-5 minutes. Skip the other 80 or so.
My first impression was: French. It’s artsy. Competent but boring.
Then: Gets more clever, I can tell (I think) the messages it’s sending without being hit over the head with them, and I chuckle/smile a bit. The way she finds a secret compartment is clever, especially after being led in a different direction. Then it slowly meanders and starts to lose me until…
About 40 minutes in, I’d had enough. And though I watched the rest of it, I really didn’t care. It was drudgery and “Yeah, real clever. Wonderful. Oh, great…yeah. How much time is left??”.
To explain, I would say that the clever bits either stopped being clever or COMPLETELY lost my interest because they were leading to dull/dumb things if they led anywhere at all. The talking to the camera didn’t draw me in…thank God. I didn’t wanna be in. It was the same as the rest, no better or worse. Equivalent, let’s say, for the sticklers, as opposed to equal.
Quite frankly I found Amelie herself more pretentious and weird than interesting. Weird does NOT equal interesting. The two are not intrinsically connected, although they certainly converge in many instances. This, to me, is not one of them. And despite all of her weirdness, I find her acts of inspiration rather stupid random chaos.
Her signature moves are smiling impishly, and letting others (including the narrator) talk for her.
I mean, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it at all. Not one bit, not after :40:00.
I get the messages…like when she asks her father a deep question and he responds by saying something unrelated and dull, my interpretation is “they’re showing how different they are and how she longs for someone to understand her, etc…”. I get that. I just don’t think it’s really any more clever than the next DECENT movie giving messages in exactly the same way. Without being brilliant. Just like this.
Parts are just overblown and annoying, because they’re supposed to be brilliant but I know they’re not. I particularly groaned (not just bored, annoyed) at the artsy-craftsy visuals.
Vastly overrated. After 40, it’s barely watchable. And it HURTS.
Grade: D-