There’s not much left to say about this movie, and I’m surprised I’ve not reviewed it before. It’s visually among the most beautiful movies ever made. Audrey Tautou is like Hepburn brought back to life. The predominantly piano-based score by Yann Tiersen goes up there with Michael Nyman’s The Piano and Ennio Morricone’s Once Upon a Time in America on the “why the eff didn’t they even get nominated for an Oscar??”

All that said, I have to admit that for some reason the second half of the movie has disappointed me both this and the last time I saw it. I don’t know exactly why that is, possibly just a personal mood thing. Whatever the reason, I do tend to tune out over the last half hour, but it remains one of my all-time favourites because the startling glimmers of beauty – like Amélie guiding the blind man through the streets of Paris, her disruption of the mean old grocer’s day, her goldfish gazing up at her from the stream, the simply wonderful opening sequence of her as a young girl – are so frequent and mesmerizing, it’s impossible not to fall in love again every time. I’m gonna be harsh here and give it 4 stars but on a better day and for most people with a heart it’d be an easy 5.