Amelie

Absolutely charming -- a triumph of performance and imagination, and a joy to watch. The opening moments of the film depict the circumstances of the birth of the remarkable Amélie Poulain (the irresistible Audrey Tautou), as well as her oddball childhood -- incorrectly diagnosed with a heart condition, Amélie is homeschooled and her mother's early death exacerbates her father's antisocial habits, so she spends a great deal of time alone and indulges in a rich fantasy life. Grown up and working as a waitress in a Montmarte cafe, Amélie's life changes the day she discovers an old tin filled with childhood treasures. She resolves to find its owner and return the box secretly. The results are magnificent and she embarks on a new career as a do-gooder, crafting elaborate schemes to improve the lives of the people around her without them knowing. To jolt her father (Rufus)out of his retirement rut, she steals his beloved garden gnome and sends it around the world, mailing tourist snapshots to her bewildered Papa. She cooks up a romance for hypochondriac co-worker Georgette (Isabelle Nanty) and repugnant regular Joseph (Dominique Pinon). She plays dozens of nasty and hilarious little tricks on the local greengrocer (Urbain Cancelier) for being mean to his delivery boy. In the midst of these ploys, she encounters a young man (Mathieu Kassovitz) with an odd hobby -- he collects and reconstructs ripped-up pictures from photo booths all over the Paris Métro. A complicated stratagem designed to return his photo album betrays that she's fallen for him, but she's so busy fixing other people's lives that she can't figure out how to bring love into her own. The characters are lovingly drawn and marvelously acted (Amélie in particular) and the scenes of Paris are better than any tourist pamphlet. This is an exuberant, funny and fanciful film no one should miss.

The two-disk DVD includes two English featurettes; Q&As with director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and the cast and crew; behind-the-scenes features; audition footage; storyboard features; the "A Quai" music video and more.