As every city dweller knows, the best place to be lonely is in a crowd. Living in a city is like belonging to a human hive: thousands upon thousands of people are crowded together, yet each exists in their own little niche, cloistered from the constant buzz of urban life. In this imaginative and buoyant French comedy, a solitary Parisian named Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) makes a simple decision to step out of her own safety zone, and ends up affecting the lives of everyone around her.

Infused with a relentlessly sunny disposition and a wry sense of humor, Amélie warmly embraces sentimentality without being corny nor cloying. This big-hearted film trades generic feel-good scenarios for idiosyncratic, oddball touches, deftly managing to be both universal and quirky. Resoundingly quirky, in fact, as befits the truly original mind of French director and master fabulist Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who made Delicatessen (1991), The City of Lost Children (1995), and Alien: Resurrection (1997).

In a series of rapid-fire tableaux, shot in Jeunet's characteristic live action cartoon style, a string of serendipitous events lead to Amélie's conception. The whimsical quality of the imagery continues as scenes of her life fly by, full of the forgotten charms of childhood. The potential cuteness of this technique is countered by the gravitas of narrator André Dussollier (Un Coeur en Hiver), whose stern pronouncements anchor the film's flights of fancy. (The clever dialogue from screenwriter Guillaume Laurant, who conceived the story with Jeunet, is delightful even as it whizzes by in subtitles.) The young Amélie develops into an imaginative girl, turning to the magic of her own mind to isolate her from a stifling home life ruled by fear and paranoia.

As an adult, she's sweet, quiet and always a little sad, a waitress in a Montmartre café who spends most of her free time in the cocoon of her nearby apartment. (Even though this film is set in bustling, contemporary Paris, her building has the same cut-off feeling as the post-apocalyptic residence in Delicatessen.) Living among a host of eccentrics, each so wrapped up in their own concerns that they barely acknowledge each other, Amélie prides herself on being an observer of overlooked details, and appreciator of simple pleasures (she immerses her hand in a bag of dried legumes with unabashed joy). Then one day, inexplicably, everything changes.

Shocked by the television news of Princess Diana's death (the conclusion of one fairy tale marks the commencement of another), Amélie drops a glass perfume stopper, which careens across her floor and dislodges a baseboard tile. She discovers, hidden in the recess of that thick old world wall, a box full of boyhood treasures, and she resolves to return it (and the memories it contains) to its former owner. By venturing out beyond her front door, Amélie gets to know the strangers around her, and begins to see how their lives might be bettered.

Soon, she's anonymously altering their fates through small but significant actions, from kidnapping a garden gnome to fabricating a "lost" letter. (Or in the case of her mean-spirited grocer, she gives him a taste of the bitterness he regularly dishes out.) This story isn't so much about doing good deeds as breaking out of a destructive routine, and Amélie provides new beginnings for those near and dear to her, each of whom is stuck in their own peculiar rut.

So much of what makes Amélie distinctive is in the way the story is told. Jeunet superbly uses comedy to illuminate each characters' idiosyncrasies, often interjecting a rapid-fire recitation of each person's highly individual likes and dislikes. His occasional forays into the fantastic — such as the moment when inanimate objects come alive to watch over this shy Cinderella like refugees from Euro Disney — only enhance Amélie's magical aura. (The film's French title is Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, literally The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain.) And the already brisk pacing of the film goes into overdrive when romance enters the picture in the form of Nino Quicampoix (Mathieu Kassovitz), an enigmatic and charming collector of discarded photo booth snapshots.

When the moment arrives for our heroine to bravely take her own leap of faith, the film embraces a kind of whole-hearted romanticism that bathes Paris in its own particular glow. This radiance has more to do with a poetic idea of the city as the nexus of romance, as opposed to a bustling, noisy metropolis with one of the world's highest costs of living. Certainly, the romantic and benign City of Light created here by Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a myth. But with Amélie, he's achieved a new kind of intelligent escapism: a blissful modern fable which boldly decrees that happiness is available to everyone. That, in itself, is no small feat.

© 2001, Serena Donadoni. All rights reserved.

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet | Writers: Guillaume Laurant and Jean-Pierre Jeunet | Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel | Music: Yann Tiersen | Production Design: Aline Bonetto | Costume Design: Madeline Fontaine and Emma Lebail | Editing: Hervé Schneid | Producers: Jean-Marc Deschamps and Claudie Ossard | Released by Miramax Films | Running time: 122 minutes | Rated R | In French with English subtitles

Cast: Audrey Tautou (Amélie Poulain), Mathieu Kassovitz (Nino Quicampoix), Rufus (Raphaël Poulain), Lorella Cravotta (Amandine Poulain), Serge Merlin (Raymond Dufayel), Jamel Debbouze (Lucien), Clotilde Mollet (Gina), Claire Maurier (Suzanne), Isabelle Nanty (Georgette), Dominique Pinon (Joseph), Artus de Penguern (Hipolito), Urbain Cancelier (Collignon), Yolande Moreau (Madeleine Wallace), Maurice Bénichou (Dominique Bretodeau), Flora Guiet (Amélie as a girl), and André Dussollier (narrator).