A Very Long Engagement


A Very Long Engagement, Audrey Tautou
Image credit: A Very Long Engagement: Bruno Calvo

Must-see holiday movies: ''A Very Long Engagement''

THE STORY Based on the 1991 novel that was a best-seller in its Gallic home, the French-language Engagement stars Amélie gamine Audrey Tautou (pictured) as Mathilde, a 19-year-old polio survivor who refuses to believe her fiancé, Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), has been killed in a WWI prison camp. With the help of an eccentric, handlebar-mustached private eye (Ticky Holgado), she sets out to find him. Along the way she encounters the tragedy of war, as told through various characters' brutal flashbacks. Says leading man Ulliel: ''At its core, the film is deeply antimilitaristic. It really is a message of hope.''
WHY WE LOVE IT For reuniting the irresistible Tautou with her Amélie director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Like their prior collaboration, Engagement takes place in a world brimming with romantic whimsy and endearing oddballs (a postman who delights in scattering pebbles with his bicycle; a bistro owner whose wooden hand doubles as a nutcracker), but this time, Jeunet balances it with an epic gravitas.
YOU MIGHT LIKE IT IF YOU LIKED... Amélie, of course, and Anthony Minghella's true-love-during-wartime The English Patient.
THE PEDIGREE Jeunet's major breakthrough was 1991's bizarre black comedy Delicatessen, which he cowrote and codirected. It featured many actors who would become his regulars, including Holgado and Dominique Pinon, here cast as Mathilde's supportive uncle.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR Flawless French speaker Jodie Foster, as a widow who's part of the puzzle Mathilde must solve to recover Manech. (Nov. 26, R)

评论

发表评论

此博客中的热门博文

Audrey Tautou Biography

  Earning effusive comparisons to another Audrey, sylph-like French actress Audrey Tautou became an international star with her performance as the eponymous do-gooder in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's romantic fable Amélie (2001).Born in Beaumont, France, Tautou's childhood interest in monkeys led to plans to become a primatologist, but she found her true calling when she began to study acting in school. After graduation, Tautou found roles on French TV, and earned Canal+'s prize in 1999 for Best Newcomer. Moving to films, Tautou quickly made a mark with her performance as Natalie Baye's young co-worker in Venus Beauty Institute (1999) and earned the César for Best New Actress. While Tautou worked steadily, playing a supporting role in the ribald Denis Diderot biopic Le Libertin (2000) and leads in Voyous Voyelle (2000) and Happenstance (2000), her appearance in Venus Beauty Institute pr
See more »

Bedtime stories

图片
How is it that it's been just three days since my vacation and already I am feel sleep deprived? Clearly, I have a problem. Clearly, this problem is serious since it was not remedied by a whole week of sleeping in until past 11 a.m. Though, thinking about this issue in the wee small hours of the morning, I realized that perhaps my problem is simply motivation. Because, well, if any of these women were in my bed I'd have no problem crawling under the covers. Of course, whether we'd sleep or not is entirely another matter. Hmm, perhaps this is the wrong kind of motivation after all. Wrong but delicious. Famke Janssen Audrey Tautou Angelina Jolie
See more »