Rues of Roo

I remember the first time I ever saw Audrey Tautou in ‘Amelie’. To be quite honest I thought she was such a bizarre femme Francais. Little did I know that that alone was testament to her accomplishment as an actor.

I never did see her following two widely screened performances. The first, I forget the name, was about her as some psychotic woman, the second, the Da Vinci Code, I never bothered watching (and no, not because I boycotted it as an anti-Christian movie, just because I heard it was crap).

However, watching ‘Priceless’, or Hors de Prix, as it is known in native tongue, I confess her performance to be rather intriguing, captivating, and so very different from the rather querky little girl that I saw so many years ago in Amelie. I wouldn’t say that it was ‘Oscar’ worthy, but I did enjoy her performance, growing from a gold-digging young woman to an essentially smitten girl with the poorest guy in town, drawn together only out of respect (or disillusionment perhaps) with someone in the same trade as herself and thence sharing a common, albeit unwitting for him, interest. It is furthermore amusing that she begins to burden herself with imparting her knowledge and ‘skills’ to satiate his, or rather, her, insatiable greed.

But having lavished all that praise upon Mdme Tatou, I must say the performance of Gad Elmaleh is equally entrancing. His initial appearance as a sartorially inept, socially inadequate (though you know his confidence lies within, only his insecurity lies with his wallet, or lack of it) individual transforms dramatically throughout the movie.  His rather deadpan, sorrowful face, by the end has a very charming and sophisticated feel to it. Amazing what a nice suit and tie (and watch) can do to a man. He reminds me somewhat of Adrien Brody. Uncharacteristically handsome.

It really is a very amusing show, full of comic, cringe worthy moments, and if you look past the rather disturbing reality that such occurrences are more than real and rather unfortunate in manner, a rather nice romantic flick. A favourite is the scene which is oft shown in the trailers where Jean (Gad Elmaleh) shows off his new, EUR30,000 watch to Irene (Audrey Tautou), posing and answering her question of the time with ‘Nine diamonds past’. Classic. Simply classic.

Go and watch.