“twee: Something that is sweet, almost to the point of being sickeningly so. As a derogatory descriptive, it means something that is affectedly dainty or quaint, or is way too sentimental. ‘” –urbandictionary.com

I knew precious little about Amelie when I found it online via Hulu. I knew it was a French film that a whole lot of people seem to enjoy, I knew that it was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and I knew that it starred Audrey Tatou in the title role. All of which told me not a single thing about the film itself. Still, it’s a film that I’ve been meaning to get around to for quite some time, and I figured that I may as well see it now, while I’m stuck away from the theaters of Portland and my DVD collection back home.

I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but I don’t think I was expecting quite so much forced whimsy concentrated into two hours.

For the uninitiated, Amelie tells the story of a young Parisian woman who’s taken a sudden fancy to improving the lives of those around her. She cares a great deal about her friends, though she herself is extremely shy and introverted. As such, she can only help others and make her feelings known via indirect ways. Thus, pretty much the entire second act consists of Amelie hatching various clever schemes to get her way without letting anyone know about her involvement.

Naturally, this leads to two things happening. First, it comes back to bite her (though not nearly as hard as it should) that everyone else’s newfound happiness is based entirely on her lies. Second, she falls in love with someone only to find — despite her repeated efforts to the contrary — that two people in love can’t be anonymous with each other forever.

But before we get to that, we get a first act that consists pretty much entirely of narration. No joke, the narrator gets more lines in the first thirty minutes than all of the onscreen characters put together. Three times more, at least. The narrator outright tells us absolutely everything, from what’s happening onscreen to all of the characters’ backstories. And I mean all the characters.

There are at least a dozen lead and supporting characters in this film, and the narrator takes the time to introduce every one of them. Their names, histories, likes, and dislikes are all told to us upfront by the narrator. The characters are all detailed and fleshed-out to a wonderful degree, yet the narrating voice-over does all the heavy lifting of actually establishing these characters. I don’t think I’ve ever seen characterization that showed so much laziness, and yet showed so much effort.

But it doesn’t just end with the rampant narration. In addition to that, the fourth wall is incredibly porous, with characters frequently addressing the camera to join in on the narration. The characters are all extremely heightened (Amelie most of all, with Tatou’s expressive china-doll face), and their mental states are expressed by way of bright visual effects. The camera movements are often very exaggerated in their movements, and every frame is drenched with enough yellow to make Wes Anderson blanch. Oh, and let’s not forget the score, which is practically “Looney Tunes-esque” in how it plays up every important little action.

All of this adds up to one thing: This movie is whimsical. Disturbingly whimsical. From the very first scene, this movie slaps you across the face with how whimsical it is. This isn’t just a cute movie, and it isn’t just a movie that knows its cute. This movie wants you to know that it knows that its cute, and it will force that knowledge into your brain by any means necessary.

Then there’s the matter of the film’s thematic content. Frequent mention is made of Lady Diana’s death (which happened only four years before this movie’s release, remember), and that’s just one of the many symbols and metaphors that this movie utilizes to express its theme of living life to the fullest. If you’ve been paying attention, it should come as no surprise that all of these metaphors are about as subtle as a stick of dynamite.

Yet for all of this, is it a bad movie? Well, no. Put this much creativity and effort into something, after all, and it’s bound to pan out in some way or another. Even if the story’s presentation is totally devoid of subtlety, it’s at least presented in a beautifully original way. Even if the film is oppressively yellow, the camera moves in such a way that the director and his crew clearly knew what they were doing. Even if the characters are set up through lazy voice-over, they’re all unique, sympathetic, and a great deal of fun to watch. And lest we forget, Amelie’s various strategies are all set up and executed in ways that unfold in very entertaining ways.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that even if Amelie gets aggressively twee, it never gets boring. There’s clearly a lot of talent and intelligence that went into the film, which makes up for the many pretentious moments that go by. I personally prefer my movies to be a lot more subtle, but I won’t deny that the movie has a sweet kind of charm to it. In fact, I daresay that the film’s humor and romanticism would appeal equally to both sexes.

As a film in general, I’d say it’s worth a rental. As a romantic comedy, this is probably one of the best I’ve ever seen.