Critical Response
Alan Morrison from Empire Online gave Amélie five stars and called it "one of the year’s best, with crossover potential along the lines of Cyrano De Bergerac and Il Postino. Given its quirky heart, it might well surpass them all."
Paul Tatara from CNN Reviewer praised Amélie's playful nature. In her review she said, "Its whimsical, free-ranging nature is often enchanting; the first hour, in particular, is brimming with amiable, sardonic laughs."
The film was attacked by critic Serge Kaganski of Les Inrockuptibles for an unrealistic and picturesque vision of a bygone French society with few ethnic minorities. "If the director was trying to create an idyllic vision of a perfect Paris," Kaganski argued, "He removed nearly all black people." Jeunet dismissed the criticism by pointing out that the photo collection contains pictures of people from numerous ethnic backgrounds, and that Jamel Debbouze, who plays Lucien, is of Moroccan descent.
Read more about this topic: Amelie Poulain
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or response:
“Productive collaborations between family and school, therefore, will demand that parents and teachers recognize the critical importance of each other’s participation in the life of the child. This mutuality of knowledge, understanding, and empathy comes not only with a recognition of the child as the central purpose for the collaboration but also with a recognition of the need to maintain roles and relationships with children that are comprehensive, dynamic, and differentiated.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death’s perfect punctuation mark is a smile.”
—Julie Burchill (b. 1960)