Je vous trouve très beau

I watched this film on an international flight from Frankfurt to Charlotte. Despite the fact that it was in French with English subtitles, I chose it from among the other tacky Hollywood choices of film and sitcoms that were available on the in-flight entertainment system.

I have to disagree with the prior reviewer who said, "The plot is simple but interesting, based on two facts: - the difficulty for French farmers to find spouses willing to settle in a farm; - the difficulty for young Romanians to get a decent job in their own country".

These situations only provided the context for the film. The true basis for this film is a beautiful and entertaining story of loving after loss, and the strength of human character...peppered with a clever and humorous examination of the differences in the way men and women think (which seems to be universal regardless of culture).

As I returned home from 2 wonderful weeks in Europe, the French dialogue and beautiful scenery took me on a mental journey that allowed me to forget for a couple of hours more - the shallowness and wastefulness of American culture.

This film is not just worth watching...if you care at all about diversity and you enjoy celebrating the full spectrum of human emotions, it's worth adding to your collection.

This is a charming story of unlikely companions cast together by circumstance and hard choices. It is interesting to see how the protagonists use their situation, once they have committed initially to their self interests, to pay each other back, and with love and compassion eventually find what they do not expect. Each phase of this progression is clearly imprinted in the viewer's experience from both points of view in a very patient, but not slow, immersion into the characters' hearts and psyches. The effect of this is to erase the viewer's point of view and leave the audience with a memorable impression of the whole, which is beautiful to behold.

This film will probably not be remembered in 10 years but it does not matter as it's not meant to be a 7th art masterpiece. The plot is simple but interesting, based on two facts: - the difficulty for French farmers to find spouses willing to settle in a farm; - the difficulty for young Romanians to get a decent job in their own country;

A market-oriented solution would be to bring together the offer and the demand. And it's exactly what the dating company is doing. The problem is that human beings, unlike goods, have feelings: - it's hard for a French farmer to understand a girl from Romania; - it's hard for a Romanian girl to leave her country and her past behind.

It's a nice reminder to those criticizing immigrants that it's always a last-resort and heart-breaking solution to move away from home in search for better conditions.

Two great actors: Michel Blanc and Medeea Constantinescu.

Last but not least, life in Romania is far from being as dull as the film pretends.

J'ai trouve cette film tres beau. A lovely little film that was very funny, if not a little disjointed. All the laughs seemed to occur in the first half of the program, with the sadness of the heroine overtaking the hilarity when the full realisation of her situation hits.

A French farm couple live a fairly spartan existence, with him tending the fields and her looking after the house and the cows. Unfortunately, the second-hand milking machine blows-up, electrocuting the farmer's wife. This is where the fun starts.

Unable to cope with household chores, our farmer resorts to a marriage agency and finds himself in Bucharest, interviewing prospective young women. Although short round and bald, all the girls are trained to tell him he is handsome. (Je vous trouve tres beau). He finds this bewildering. However, he chooses one young woman desperate enough to leave Rumania.

Hiding the fact that he has procured a woman from Eastern Europe, the couple return to France, where she puts the house in order. Even the dog becomes loving under her touch. However, the farmer, long dormant in the love department, appears to be resistant to her advances. Nevertheless, he does fall for her charms, realises she is desperately unhappy, and pretending that she has won a trifecta, generously (for the first time in his life?) gives her the money to return home and be secure.

This film is amusing and emotional. It reflects country living in France and the sad situation of people living in Eastern Europe, with humour and sensitivity. You will enjoy this film, as long as you don't love cats.

Isabelle Mergault's You Are So Handsome/Je vous trouve très beau is a conventional mainstream French film with a slightly new theme: what happens when an Eastern European mail-order bride is brought in on the QT to help out with chores on a French provincial farm. Shortly after the film begins, French farmer Aymé (super-popular actor Michel Blanc) loses his wife in an off-screen accident. Little love was lost between the gruff pair, and once his wife's gone, Aymé's main concern is who, now, is going to do the laundry, cook, and tend to the chickens and cows on his farm. He can't do all that himself. So he's barely out of his funeral suit when we see him accompanying a professional matchmaking lady on a plane to Bucharest to interview prospective brides. It's obvious there are lots of girls over there desperate to get out, some with the rudiments of French. One of the interviewees, Elena (Medeea Marinescu), has the sense to dress down and say she likes animals. "You Look so handsome" is what they all tell the farm widower – even Elena. When they say it, Michel Blanc's rubber-faced deadpan goes all pouty.

He winds up picking Elena – sort of. He doesn't marry her. He arranges for her to arrive back home after him, pretends she's a distant relative come for an internship on the farm, and doesn't even admit to his family that he's been to Rumania. He produces faked photos and canned sauerkraut to convince them he was in Germany for a farm equipment trade fair. He also forces Elena to pretend to everybody else that she speaks no French.

Nonetheless Elena is soon living with Aymé – though "on approval" – and helping with chores. She wants to be affectionate, but he's as brusque as ever and will have none of it. The pout stays put, despite the charms of Elena, who could pass as a young Meryl Streep and captivates all the local boys at public functions. Aymé is not above getting jealous when that happens. He's possessive, but not giving.

Je vous trouve très beau isn't challenging or subtle, but it does up the rich nation/poor nation dilemma. It's also a change from the general run of French films focused on sophisticated bourgeois Parisians (or their outcast banlieu neighbors). Veteran actress and experienced screenwriter Isabelle Mergault's first directorial effort is an entertainment, not a specific regional portrait or a searching piece of social realism designed to arouse our geopolitical awareness. It's a sentimental tale that milks its laughs and tears in an easy, simplistic way – even if it's also marked by an emotional trajectory that leaves one feeling rather muddled.

The rest of the cast is replete with (generally believable) stereotypes: the noisy relatives (who're quite appealing, but hardly seen in depth); the young country boys who gather around the pert, mini-skirted Elena; a big mute boy, her best friend in the daytime, who moons around her and helps with the chores; an old crone who has one repeated joke refrain, "Who's dead?" The cliché we've got to believe in is that Aymé's gruffness eventually melts – but a little late. By the time he's realized that he cares for Elena as a person and not just a housekeeper, and gives his one big speech about her coming on to him made him feel old and undesirable and turn on the one thing he most wanted, Elena's just about unhappy enough to walk back to Bucharest, and he provides a way.

This is the old story of the hard-hearted loner (Aymé and his dead wife have obviously lived as if they were alone for years) whose façade eventually cracks and lets the human being timidly peek out. But the process is so protracted we don't get a clearcut resolution. Most of the relationship scenes are little images of hurt and apology, reaching out and drawing back. First-timer Mergault hasn't achieved a sure rhythm, her drama veers too much toward tele-drama, and her film's too timid about its payoffs.

(Shown as part of the March 2006 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Today series at Lincoln Center, Je vous trouve tres beau opened in Paris January 11, 2006.)