Beautiful Lies with Audrey Tautou

Sweltering though the evenings may be I am not one to turn down a screening after work especially when it's the latest film featuring Audrey Tautou, Beautiful Lies. So Monday night saw myself and the Editor of Beautyandthedirt sitting in a comfortable screening room with a glass of pink wine and a crisp to see the latest offering from French Director Pierre Salvadori (director of the extremely funny Priceless).

Due to hit a cinema near you (with English subtitles), Beautiful Lies is the story of a provincial hairdresser Emilie (Tautou) who runs her hair and beauty salon and doesn't like to take 'no' for an answer. When Arab handyman Jean is discovered to speak five languages fluently and isn't what he seems, she is put on the back foot and immediately fires him. Why she does this is unclear but seems to be a running theme throughout the film.

Emilie is unaware that Jean, played by Sami Bouajila whose performance is soulful and measured, is madly in love with her and writes her an anonymous letter stating his feelings. She copies this out and sends it to her depressed mother (Nathalie Baye who played Leonardo di Caprio's mum in Catch Me If You Can) who has been abandoned by her father some four years previously. This is where the fun begins with misunderstandings and mistakes worthy of a Shakespeare play only just keeping to the sane side of farce.

Although I didn’t exactly fall in love with the female characters myself, this film is fun to watch. Shot on location somewhere in the South of France it’s a light-weight girly movie that does leave you with a few ponderables. Why is it okay for the romantic lead to be used as a chattle between the libido’s (one strong the other non-existant) of mother and daughter, and why does no-one question the morality closer (I’m not giving too much away if I say mum sleeps with romantic lead). Only in France I suppose...

Go with your best girlfriends, sisters, mum – leave boyfriend or husband behind, I really don’t think he’ll like it unless he’s a little in love with Audrey Tautou himself.


Check out the trailer here...

Release date August 12^th 2011, certificate 12a, running time 104 mins.