This movie was an awful attempt to relive the beauty that was the movie "Amelie", ain't happening. Avoid this movie if you are an Amelie fan, all it will do is depress you to see our beloved Amelie 10 years older and trying to relive the glory of the past. OK it's making me write more, sorry to bore you with more text than necessary, but here goes. The plot was OK for about 20 min, though it was sad to see Amelie reborn as a tired worn out character who has had probably gone through 100 boyfriends by this point (this time she is named "emilie"). then it dragged and dragged until the writers found a way out of the mess they had created and just ended the story with a denouement and put us all out of our misery :)

The first impression of this movie is of a pretty little French film with a very pretty little Audrey Tautou playing a character called Emilie. And if that doesn't remind you of the French classic Amelie, nothing will.So far, so good.One day, Emilie receives a romantic letter from co-worker Jean (don't get excited, Jean is a guy's name in France). However, as the letter is sent anonymously, Emilie bins it, assuming it to be from some crazy old customer.A little later, Emilie realises that her mother is very depressed about her love life, which will only be made worse when she finds out her father is planning to remarry. And so, Emilie innocently decides to pass on the love letter to her mother to cheer her up… …obviously nothing could possibly go wrong. Until her mother gets upset that a second letter hasn't been sent… This film had all the ingredients to be a really nice film (i.e. Audrey Tautou), but as it progresses any trace of innocence is stripped away layer by layer. By the time we reach the end, the lies being told have nothing remotely "beautiful" about them. They're just cruel and twisted.First impressions can be deceiving.

Is it a coincidence that Ms. Tautou is named Émilie (sounds like Amélie)? Is it a coincidence that she has the same gamin-tomboy look with her cropped hair as Amelie? Somehow I think it is intentional.Alas, where the similarities to Amélie are evident they are the only thing they have in common. Unfortunately one similarity that is glaringly missing is the sheer energy of Ms. Tautou's' former director and mentor, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Whereas Jeunet is like a brightly illuminated comet hurtling through the sky, Pierre Salvadori's style is more akin to a slow moving iceberg. And that is what the film is - an iceberg.Nearly all good romantic comedies have some essential ingredients: energy, dynamism, warmth, identifiable characters, quick-fire humour and empathy - think Bridget Jones, Notting Hill et al,. Sadly none of these ingredients are present. Not even the exceptional Nathalie Baye is able to drag this film from the doldrums. It is nothing more than a montage of scenes where very little happens or engages the viewer. Clearly Sami Bouajila did his best but his forte is serious drama and that's where he should stay.The one shining light in the film is Judith Chemla. With her very expressive face and mannerisms she has a promising future.It is quite sad that Ms. Tautou has concentrated on 'glamour' films since leaving Jeunet - "Coco Before Channel", "Priceless". At heart she is an exceptional comedy actor. Regretfully Salvadori is not the director who can direct and showcase her talents. Unless she wants to stay on the periphery of French cinema Ms. Tautou needs to ask herself how best can she deploy her many talents.

Pierre Salvadori is unfortunately really under-appreciated; he is a master in the class of Lubitch to whom he pays an ever-developing homage, it is just that, and here is my claim why, it is Lubitch crossed with lacanian psychoanalysis. This may seem extravagant, yet hear me out.In his previous feature, "Priceless", what was really, truly new in the genre of frothy french comedies, to call them that hazy category, is that the seduction usually displayed in a telling french manner, was turned on its head. The french theoretician of seduction Jean Baudrillard has devoted a whole book on this, the most sublime order that dares defy even desire in its heightening of ritual and artifice, to put it in a very abbreviated form.Yet Salvadori gave a coup to that: in the final spin of "Priceless" he exposed that you can seduce the other after your hesitating partner asked you so, and this is a proof of love; but this does not work the other way round. This is a great, dialectic demonstration of love. For me, it made me wonder, after such an achievement where would Salvadori go, for after such a score it is difficult to avoid artistic regression.Nothing to worry about, "Some True Lies" are here, giving us the next spin in the spiral, that is in order to love one has to seduce the other, but how literally is one to take this? Do I have to literally seduce your mother, the other par excellence, in order to get through to you? The cast is excellent (even though I think Tautou has slightly misconceived the tone she has to strike for her role), especially in the light of the excellent Bouajila and Bayer; they are truly something, some true actors.Some complain, or stand halfway to embarrassment that the film lacks class, and smells too much of TV production values; I was a bit shocked in the beginning, too, but the film is shockingly economic in a way, but when halfway in the film we witness the theater of shadows (I won't spoil it) this marks true sophistication, for the reason also that after that the film does not shy away from complexity but it is exactly then that the mother emerges in all her real, symbolic, imaginary faces and Bouajila follows the scenario's cue with finesse.Never vulgar, self-excusing or indulging, gracefully simple and cutting, this is a true achievement. I watched it twice in a row, fascinated by its crystal clear structure and magisterial, even haughty in the final chapter, rhythm, that risks go unperceived. The end, with its fake abruptness (which was a true celebration of the image of the mother cut loose at last), and the closing credits with its peculiar evocation of high-school french series from the nineties, verified in a way that this is a film we may have to catch up with in subtle departments.Thank you, monsieur Salvadori et merci.