I continually fell into an inarticulate nightmare as I tried to explain to friends why they should see Amélie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s latest film. Granted, the cinematography is an excellent combination of trendy, rapid-fire shots and classic close-ups that force you into Amélie’s seemingly tiny Parisian world, and Audrey Tautou, who plays Amelie, is beyond talented and adorable; these facts were easy to explain. Amélie is so layered with meaning that these single-facted despcriptions hardly do it justice.

Amélie is one in a long line of surrealistic films from Jeunet, who also directed City of Lost Children and Delicatessen. Keeping with the mystical, but none of the eerie and often bizarre motifs found in his other films, Jeunet proves successful in creating a creolization of subtle humor and utter beauty.

As a child, Amélie finds herself in the precarious situation of being the product of not one, but two neurotic parents who deem her too sickly to go to school. Lacking love and attention growing up, Amélie leaves home with a well-cultivated imagination and a fierce sense of independence to Paris, where she becomes a waitress. After finding an old memory box in the walls of her apartment, she becomes determined to find its owner and bring unexpected happiness into his life. She is successful, and decides to become everyone’s savior.

A particularly fabulous scene involves Amélie’s split-second decision to guide an old blind man through the streets of Paris. She crosses the street, grabs his arm and proceeds to give him a play-by-play description of the quotidian life around them. Jeunet’s directing is particularly successful in this scene; his ability to move the camera along as quickly as Amélie is describing these multiple visions allows the audience to feel the same surprise and amazement that the old man must be experiencing as Amélie steers him quickly down the street.

Amélie feels a great sense of satisfaction in her clever plots to create happiness, yet always works under a mysterious veil of anonymity. She bewilders her boring, garden-adornment obsessed father (played by Rufus) by sending his beloved lawn gnome on a world tour.

On her altruistic adventures in Paris, she continually runs into Nino (played by Mathieu Kassovitz) who is usually searching for ripped photographs under photo booths in Metro stations. Amélie inadvertently falls in love with the photo kleptomaniac. As she resists these feelings, Amélie is finally forced to accept her inability to allow herself happiness. Indeed, Amélie’s failure is universal and natural; her love of everyone brings her happiness, yet she finds accepting love impossible.

Throughout the entire movie, the woman next to me found it important to comment out loud that the movie was “cute.” I wanted to hit her. But there was some truth in her needless verbiage. Indeed, Tautou is painfully cute, and portrays Amélie as such. However, the real success of Tautou’s acting is her ability to play multiple roles at once. Not only is Amélie loveable in her innocence, but, as she realizes her own weaknesses, she is equally as touching. Yet Tautou’s does not transform Amélie; rather, she convincingly portrays the very human need to remain innocent and playful while becoming emotionally secure at once.

A comparably strong performance is given by Rufus, who plays Amélie’s father. Although we only run into this strange character a few times, Rufus does an excellent job of portraying Amélie’s father as distant and confused. Rufus make the eccentric countenance of the father seem utterly normal. He and Amélie play well off each other; the more aloof and oblivious he becomes to his daughter, the more pained yet determined she is to make him happy.

Ultimately, the film proves to be subtly humorous and delightfully clever. Tautou’s superb acting and Jeunet’s innovative directing push the plot to a most lofty place. Because Amélie speaks so eloquently to a situation most find themselves engaged in, the audience not only likes the movie for its dialogue and aesthetics, but loves it for justifying the universal human weaknesses and strengths that Amélie embodies so gracefully.

Amélie is now playing at Cobblestone Cinemas off Interstate 90 in Sheffield.