The term 'feel good movie' is usually used in marketing today for bland romantic comedies and crappy made for TV dramas that somehow end up as major feature films (see "The Story of Us"). Thus leave it to the French to come up with this deftly enjoyable and sweet comic fable which hits in many of the right spots that similar efforts like "Chocolat" failed in.

Audrey Tatou, a cute and inquisitive looking young woman portrays our heroinne who overcomes a sad upbringing of little affection so now she spends her days getting joy out of the little pleasures in life. Indeed, the first half hour of the movie has a lightning fast pace of quick editing and very creative dark humour (whether it be her mother's death or the sound of every woman in her neighbourhood orgasming) resulting in some of the most fresh and fun cinema of the year.

From there on a story sets in with some likable yet not entirely original characters. Mathieu Kassovitz, the man she goes after, plays a porn shop clerk who collects ripped photos - like Tatou he's not classicly good looking but is handsome and fills the role nicely whilst his scenes have some of their own fun humour (for some reason one wonders if having the skill of using a ticket price stamper on packets of varying shaped dildos would be included on his resume).

There's stereotype characters here - the stubborn grocer and his sweet but dumb son, the old neighbour who stays indoors, the older female boss whose had love and is over it, the nervous fellow employee and long time customer who suddenly fall for each other, etc. Nevertheless each is deftly performed and has their own distinctive charm which make them quite memorable.

The only downsides to the film is that it runs about 15 minutes too long, some of the more fun comic imagings displayed in the opening half hour aren't added to in the rest of the film, and some of the more quirky storylines (such as the face of a mystery man appearing phone booths) just don't work as much as the filmmakers were hoping. There's a few "Ally McBeal" style FX imaginings but thankfully the writing is much better. Jeunet, famous for deep and dark movies, gives us an eminently likable light romantic comedy fantasy which is impossible not to enjoy.