She wears dark socks, sensible shoes, an unfashionable red sweater and, if anyone would notice, her heart on its sleeve. A waitress at the Two Windmills cafe in Paris, Amelie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) is one of the legion of shy solitaries that few people seek out and fewer movies think to put at their center. But inside this gamine child of 23 is a priestess of the imagination, a ruthless schemer, a canny do-gooder, a lover. She has mischief in her, and a kind of secular sainthood.
Fortunately for us, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and screenwriter Guillaume Laurant made Amelie from Montmartre (originally...