A bit of a strange one to categorise - its not exactly a romantic comedy, but manages to be both hilarious in places and ultimately genuinely touching. In some ways the plot (and the dresses) has distant echoes of Breakfast at Tiffanys, but its both more and less cynical in its approach to human nature.Audrey Tautou plays a young gold-digger, hooking up with a succession of rich, older men in order to support her taste for designer clothes, fancy hotels and the most expensive food. However, she mistakenly ends up in bed with a hotel waiter (Gad Elmaleh) who then pursues her to Nice. When she has exhausted his credit, he ends up adopting her lifestyle, being taken up by a rich widow (Marie-Christine Adam).
Tautou is superb - a performance that combines her usual liveliness with the subtlest glimpses of the loneliness ands fragility that drive her. Adam is also great, managing to humanise what could have been a merely comic role to show touches of loneliness and humanity in the super-rich. Opposite them, Elmaleh gives a fine comic turn.
Amidst the beautiful shots of a sun-drenched riviera, the film has many real comic scenes, but also manages to find pathos in some of the most unlikely situations. If at the end it strays into romantic comedy genre cliche - the mad dash through the hotel to get to the loved one before its too late, etc... by that time, it will have won you over enough that you will forgive.
Overall - 3.5/5 It might not be the greatest comedy or romance ever, but has enough original touches, charm, humour and surprisingly touching moments to make it one of the best of recent times.
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