"Amélie" In 10 Screencaps Or Less

“Amélie” (2001) is a French film (yes, there are subtitles) about a shy waitress who decides to help others while fighting her own sense of isolation. Let’s summarize “Amélie”… In 10 Screencaps Or Less!™

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Key plotpoints are pictured below. You have been warned!
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Amélie Poulain is the daughter of an anti-social doctor and a neurotic schoolteacher. Isolated from other children and lacking any emotional support from her parents, Amélie develops a very active imagination.

Amélie grows up to be a quiet waitress in a small cafe. Her life starts to change the day Princess Diana is killed. On that day, she discovers an old metal box of childhood memorabilia hidden decades ago by a boy who once lived in her apartment. She decides to find the now-grown man and return the box to him.

During her hunt, Amélie meets her mysteirous neighbor, a painter known as “the Glass Man” because of the genetic disorder that affects his bones. With the painter’s guidance, she finds the man and secretly returns the box to him. When she sees how happy this gift makes him, Amélie resolves to do good in the lives of others.

Amélie executes a number of overly complex plots that help the people around her, including match-making at her cafe, helping her heart-broken concierge, and escorting a blind man to the subway while giving him a detailed description of the street and the people they’re passing by. The Glass Man delights in Amélie’s schemes by subtly forces her to examine her own life of solitude.

During her adventures, Amélie bumps into a man who collects abandoned photos from passport photo booths. Although they never speak, Amélie finds herself attracted to him. When he accidentally drops his photo album one day, Amélie picks it up.

She discovers his name is Nino, and plays a game of cat-and-mouse with him around the city…

… including a weird sequence at the funfair, before anonymously returning his treasured photo album to him.

She finally manages to arrange a meeting with Nino at her cafe, but is too shy to approach him. She misinterprets a conversation she observes between Nino and one of her co-workers, and her soul is crushed.

The Glass Man leaves a video for Amélie that helps her break through her despair and shyness.

Amélie and Nino finally, properly meet and begin a relationship.

THE END

Tomorrow, we’ll see how a shy waitress can inspire us to be better product managers in 2009.

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