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On the French Riviera, nothing comes cheap. And when it comes to men, Irene has very rich taste. One very confusing night, she is duped at her own game. Her knight in shining armor turns out to have no shine at all. Irene, however, is the woman of Jean's dreams. The only way to win her heart back is to turn the tables on her. Audrey Tautou (The Da Vinci Code, Amelié) stars in a romantic comedy that proves true love is PRICELESS.
Priceless provides a sweet and sour look at the world of the super-rich. Jean (
The Valet's Gad Elmaleh) works at a luxury hotel on the French Riviera. His opposite number, Irène (
Amélie's Audrey Tautou), lives off wealthy men, like elderly benefactor Jacques (Vernon Dobtcheff). While staying at Jean's Biarritz hotel,! Irène meets the bartender, mistakes him for a guest, and plies her considerable charms. Flattered, Jean neglects to tell her the truth, and they spend a drunken evening together. The next day, she's gone. The only trace of her presence: a discarded paper umbrella. A year passes, and Irène returns with Jacques, who dumps her when he find out about the cheating, so she bilks Jean out of everything he owns before disappearing again. Wealthy widow Madeleine (Marie-Christine Adam) offers to takes care of Jean's debts--for a price. And just like that, he's sunk to Irène's level. The next time she sees him, she quips, "Now we're equals." So, instead of teaching her the value of legitimate work, Irène teaches Jean how to play Madeleine like a violin. Following in the footsteps of Pierre Salvadori's
Après Vous, which centered around a suicidal sommelier,
Priceless is unexpectedly melancholy for a comedy. Like the couple in
Breakfast at Tiffany's, Jean and ! Irène are essentially two lost souls. Irène may be an icier ! creature than Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly, but Salvadori finds a satisfying way to tie a pretty bow on this somewhat prickly package and, naturally, the scenery is ravishing.
--Kathleen C. FennessyFrom Stephen Frears, the Oscar(R)-nominated director of THE GRIFTERS (Best Director, 1990) and DANGEROUS LIAISONS, DIRTY PRETTY THINGS stars Audrey Tautou (AMÉLIE) in a harrowing tale of struggle and survival for two immigrants who learn that everything is for sale in London's secret underworld! Part of an invisible working class, Nigerian exile Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Turkish chambermaid Senay (Tautou) toil at a west London hotel that is full of illegal activity. Then late one night Okwe makes a shocking discovery, which creates an impossible dilemma and tests the limits of all they know! Honored with numerous European film awards and nominations -- including wins at the London Critics Circle Film Awards and the Venice Film Festival -- you'll find this gritty urban thrill! er to be thoroughly engrossing and impossible to forget!The luminous Audrey Tautou (
Amelie) stars in
Dirty Pretty Things, a riveting thriller about an illegal immigrant in London named Okwe (Chiwetal Ejiofor,
Amistad), a doctor in his homeland who now works days as a taxi driver and nights as a hotel desk clerk. When a hooker tells him there's a mess in one of the hotel's bathrooms, Okwe finds a human heart in the toilet. He soon discovers a snare of desperation, poverty, and black-market body organs--and finds that his only friend, a Turkish hotel maid (Tautou), may be the next to be caught.
Dirty Pretty Things, skillfully directed by Stephen Frears (
High Fidelity,
Dangerous Liaisons,
My Beautiful Laundrette), fuses taut suspense with an unsettling portrait of life among the British underclass of immigrant service workers. Thanks to the excellent cast and script, the movie makes its social points subtly, while the gripping s! tory coils itself around you.
--Bret FetzerThe film is ! set in F rance near the end of World War I in the deadly trenches of the Somme, in the gilded Parisien halls of power, and in the modest home of an indomitable provincial girl. It tells the story of this young woman's relentless, moving and sometimes comic search for her fiancC)e, who has disappeared. He is one of five French soldiers believed to have been court-martialed under mysterious circumstances and pushed out of an allied trench into an almost-certain death in no-man's land. What follows is an investigation into the arbitrary nature of secrecy, the absurdity of war, and the enduring passion, intuition and tenacity of the human heart.
DVD Features:
Audio Commentary
Deleted Scenes:With Director audio commentary
Documentaries:Paris in the 20'sThe Zepplin Explosion
Featurette:The Making of A Very Long Engagement
Theatrical Trailer
Both epic and intimate,
A Very Long Engagement reunites Audrey Tautou and Jean! -Pierre Jeunet, the star and director of the hugely popular
Amelie. A young woman named Mathilde (Tautou,
Happenstance)separated from her lover by World War I refuses to believe he's been killed and launches an investigation into his fate--an investigation that spins in all directions, creating dozens of miniature stories (including that of an Italian prostitute avenging the death of her own lover by elaborate means) that shift to and fro in time. The dazzling curlicues of narrative put brutality and tenderness back to back, shifting between crushing inevitabilities and miraculous rescues with deft storytelling skill and the lush visual style of the director of
Delicatessen and
The City of Lost Children. Through it all, Tautou--fierce and luminous--anchors the movie effortlessly. She's among the most emotionally engaging actresses in cinema, with the kind of expressive beauty that transcends language. A gorgeous, far-reaching film; the huge cast ! also includes Jodie Foster (
The Silence of the Lambs), ! Gaspard Ulliel (
Strayed), and Dominique Pinon (
Alien: Resurrection).
--Bret FetzerAudrey Tautou (
The Da Vinci Code,
Amélie) shines in this intriguing portrait of the early life of Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, the orphan who would build a fashion empire and be known universally by her nickname, Coco. She journeys from a mundane seamstress job to boisterous cabarets to the opulent French countryside, possessing little more than her unwavering determination, unique style and visionary talent. Also starring Benoît Poelvoorde (
In His Hands) and Alessandro Nivola (
Junebug). Featuring lush settings and stunning costume design,
Coco Before Chanel is the gripping and dramatic story of an icon who defied convention and defined the modern woman.Before she became Coco, the world-famous fashion designer, Gabrielle Chanel (Audrey Tautou in a fiercely determined performance) struggled to make ends meet. After her mother's death, her father dep! osited her and her sister, Adrienne (Marie Gillain), at an orphanage, where they learned to sew (and where Chanel developed a taste for monochromatic ensembles). They went on to become cabaret singers, but when Adrienne runs off with a wealthy suitor, the newly christened Coco must go it alone until she meets gentleman farmer Étienne Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde). She lives comfortably at his chateau, but he refuses to take her out in public, so she puts her skills as a seamstress to good use and designs outfits for his lady friends, like Emilienne (Emmanuelle Devos), an actress. Chanel's situation improves further when British investor Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola with an impeccable French accent) enters the scene. Her working-class origins present less of a problem with Capel, though the couple will have other issues with which to contend. In the meantime, he gives her the money to open her own Parisian studio, and the film ends with the tweed suit-clad Chanel of ! the popular imagination. Until that time, writer-director Anne! Fontain e (
The Girl from Monaco) presents a very different character, a woman who wasn't worldly or sophisticated, but who saw no reason why fashion--or "style," as she called it--should be complicated or uncomfortable. In transforming herself, Coco Chanel transformed an entire industry and, arguably, an entire gender.
--Kathleen C. Fennessy Stills from Coco Before Chanel (Click for larger image) When we first meet rising young artist Angelique (Tautou), she is in the glorious throes of true love, and the whole world has seemingly fallen under her spell. Her handsome lover Loic is madly in love with her, her paintings are winning wide acclaim, and a glorious future seems all but assured. But Angelique's blissful world may not be as enchanting as it first seems, and in a quick startling moment, her life - and our understanding of it -seems to! unravel in front of our eyes. Starring Audrey Tautou (Amelie)! , Samuel Le Bihan (Three Colors: Red).That adorable Audrey Tautou from
Amélie plays the central role in this deceptive story of a rather unusual romance. It would spoil the film's clever design to reveal what happens halfway through
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, so let's just say that Tautou plays a winsome girl in the sunny town of Bordeaux, whose relationship with a married doctor has more layers than first it seems. Samuel LeBihan, from
Brotherhood of the Wolf, plays the doctor, but it's the casting of cutie-pie Tautou that sets up the movie's gradually sinister undertow. Director Laetitia Colombani's inventive structure plays a satisfyingly tricky game with the audience, and may have some viewers going back to the beginning to make sure they saw what they thought they saw. Just don't go in expecting
Amélie part deux, and you should find this an ingenious little number.
--Robert HortonNominated for five Academy Awards including Best Original S! creenplay, this magical comedy earned overwhelming acclaim nationwide! A painfully shy waitress working at a tiny Paris cafe, Amélie makes a surprising discovery and sees her life drastically changed for the better! From then on, Amélie dedicates herself to helping others find happiness ... in the most delightfully unexpected way! But will she have the courage to do for herself what she has done for others?Perhaps the most charming movie of all time,
Amélie is certainly one of the top 10. The title character (the bashful and impish Audrey Tautou) is a single waitress who decides to help other lonely people fix their lives. Her widowed father yearns to travel but won't, so to inspire the old man she sends his garden gnome on a tour of the world; with whispered gossip, she brings together two cranky regulars at her café; she reverses the doorknobs and reprograms the speed dial of a grocer who's mean to his assistant. Gradually she realizes her own life needs fixin! g, and a chance meeting leads to her most elaborate stratagem ! of all. This is a deeply wonderful movie, an illuminating mix of magic and pragmatism. Fans of the director's previous films (
Delicatessen,
The City of Lost Children) will not be disappointed; newcomers will be delighted.
--Bret FetzerAudrey Tautou (star of
Amélie) shimmers like a born movie star in
Happenstance. A woman on the morning train tells Tautou that the full moon will lead her to her soulmate; from there,
Happenstance follows a marvelous interlocking series of events, in which little things (like whether or not a young museum guard eats a piece of chocolate) affect bigger ones (like whether or not an adulterous husband will tell his wife the truth). The numerous characters intersect with each other's lives, creating a web of coincidences that finally catches Tautou like a hapless fly. This could have been cloying and forced, but the writing and directing are so deft and subtle that the coincidences of
Happenstance feel natu! ral and compelling. A sweet and hopeful movie, with excellent performance all around, but Tautou's wide-open eyes leap out of her every scene, hypnotic and charming.
--Bret FetzerOn the French Riviera, nothing comes cheap. And when it comes to men, Irene has very rich taste. One very confusing night, she is duped at her own game. Her knight in shining armor turns out to have no shine at all. Irene, however, is the woman of Jean's dreams. The only way to win her heart back is to turn the tables on her. Audrey Tautou (The Da Vinci Code, Amelié) stars in a romantic comedy that proves true love is PRICELESS.
Priceless provides a sweet and sour look at the world of the super-rich. Jean (
The Valet's Gad Elmaleh) works at a luxury hotel on the French Riviera. His opposite number, Irène (
Amélie's Audrey Tautou), lives off wealthy men, like elderly benefactor Jacques (Vernon Dobtcheff). While staying at Jean's Biarritz hotel, Irène meets the bartender,! mistakes him for a guest, and plies her considerable charms. ! Flattere d, Jean neglects to tell her the truth, and they spend a drunken evening together. The next day, she's gone. The only trace of her presence: a discarded paper umbrella. A year passes, and Irène returns with Jacques, who dumps her when he find out about the cheating, so she bilks Jean out of everything he owns before disappearing again. Wealthy widow Madeleine (Marie-Christine Adam) offers to takes care of Jean's debts--for a price. And just like that, he's sunk to Irène's level. The next time she sees him, she quips, "Now we're equals." So, instead of teaching her the value of legitimate work, Irène teaches Jean how to play Madeleine like a violin. Following in the footsteps of Pierre Salvadori's
Après Vous, which centered around a suicidal sommelier,
Priceless is unexpectedly melancholy for a comedy. Like the couple in
Breakfast at Tiffany's, Jean and Irène are essentially two lost souls. Irène may be an icier creature than Audrey Hepburn's Holly ! Golightly, but Salvadori finds a satisfying way to tie a pretty bow on this somewhat prickly package and, naturally, the scenery is ravishing.
--Kathleen C. Fennessy
