You won't be disappointed!

Sadly Over-hyped

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This stars Nathalie Baye, not Audrey Tautou, of Amélie (2001) fame. (She has a supporting role.) Baye is Angèle, a 40-year-old Parisian beautician who has loved and lost a few too many times. Indeed, as the film opens we (and Samuel Le Bihan as Antoine) watch and hear her being dumped once again. Well, she is careless with men. She is perhaps too "easy." She picks up men, the wrong ones. She is aggressive in her desire. And now she has become cynical. All she wants now are one-nights stands, no more love, no more unbreak my heart. Love is too painful.So when Antoine falls in love with her at something like first sight (I do have a weakness for love at first sight: it is so, so daring, and so, shall we say, unpredictable) she rejects him out of hand even though he is a vital and handsome artist, confident and winning. What IS her problem? But he pursues her even though he is engaged to another (Hélène Fillières). And when she gets drunk and wants some casual sex with him, he says no. He wants her fully in control of her faculties.So this is a romantic comedy of sorts centered around a beauty parlor. However any resemblance to Hollywood movies in the same genre (Shampoo (1975) and Hairspray (1988) somehow come to mind) is purely coincidental. Here the salon is brightly and colorfully lit with a tinker bell as the door opens, and the clientele are eclectic to say the least: an exhibitionist who arrives in a raincoat and nothing else; a rich old man lusting after Tautou; a woman with oozing pimples on her...(never mind)...etc.What makes this work so well is a completely winning performance by Baye, sharp direction by Toni Marshall, and a kind of quirky and blunt realism that eschews all cliché. Tautou fans will be disappointed in her modest part, but she is just adorable in that role. The voyeur scene in which she is willingly seduced by the rich old guy may raise your libido or your envy depending on where you're coming from. Ha!See this for Nathalie Baye who gives the performance of a lifetime, simultaneously subtle and strong, vulnerable and willful. She makes us identify with her character and she makes us wish her love.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Nathalie Baye illuminates any film she cares to grace - as do so many French actresses, Isabelle Carre, Sabine Azema, Carole Bouquet, Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Kiberlain, etc - and this time around for good measure she has great support from the likes of Bulle Ogier, Audrey Tatou (pre- Amelie and relatively unknown) and Mathilde Seignier. In short it's a terrific ensemble piece revolving around a beauty parlour and the Christmas holiday respectively. Even with a gun to my head I couldn't pick out a bad performance and writer-director Toni Marshall is going to have a hard time eclipsing this one. It was more than deserving of the 'Best Film' Cesar it was awarded and in this case we can truly say it was champagne for cesar. 9/10

A parade of interesting characters walk through this beauty parlor usually convinced that all that matters is the external self. While the workers service their customer's outside's, the workers go about dealing with their inner feelings and emotions.Which is more important? When the camera is in the "institute", things are pink and alive, but superficial. When the camera is outside, thing get much more dreary, but more emotionally satisfying.May be both things count equally.

Nathalie Baye is on the screen in almost every scene, and it's never too much. She's outstanding. The supporting cast are also very good. The directing is mostly quite good too. But the real treat is in the story.The main character, Angèle, is a beautician who is afraid to fall in love, because she's been hurt too much in the past. A new man tells her he's in love -- the last thing she wants to hear from a man. She's 40, but the story would have worked for a person of any age. (I saw the movie at a Seattle International Film Festival screening. Director Tonie Marshall told us in the audience that she had Nathalie Baye in mind as the star, and wrote the character to fit her.) But I can't say much more about the main plot without spoilers.While the story is centered on Angèle, there are several other interesting characters, mainly her co-workers (particularly young, innocent Marie) and some interesting regular clients (particularly the comical Madame Buisse).While the story is mainly a romantic comedy, there is some drama. The story does a good job of keeping the comedy and serious drama from running into conflict with each other. And unusual for a comedy, the story doesn't stray from plausibility for the sake of humor, but the comedy is still strong.