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"A willing suspension of disbelief should get most viewers across the line."
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Beautiful Lies (DVD)
Year: 2010
Rating: M
Director: Pierre Salvadori
Cast: Sami Bouajila , Nathalie Baye , Audrey Tautou
Release Date: December 01, 2012
Distributor: Paramount
The Film: 4.0
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5“...a fun French comedy, but not so light that it lacks substance.”
Beautiful Lies is so much more than your average rom-com - in this well-worn genre it reveals continuous twists and even a surprising turn. No need for CGI or 3-D here, this story is purely character driven. Émilie Dandrieux (Audrey Tautou reuniting with her Priceless director Pierre Salvadori) is a hairdresser utterly oblivious to the fact that her handyman, Jean (Sami Bouajila), is madly in love with her and the author of the anonymous love letter she receives in a delightful opening-credit sequence.
Emotionally shut down after her parents' separation, Émilie forwards the letter to her dejected mother, Maddy (a luminescent Nathalie Baye), hoping it will cure her depression. It works, but what's required to keep the façade going is a hilarious web of lies that gets more tangled at every turn, thanks to a sharp screenplay by Salvadori and Benoit Graffin. Compounding the laughs is a French satirical flip on sexual harassment so subtle it may be missed.
Beautiful Lies is a fun French comedy, but not so light that it lacks substance. Instead of overt preaching, the typically farcical sequence of misunderstandings ultimately, and subtly, reveals the truth.
