Delicacy (La Delicatesse) is a surprisingly enjoyable story of unlikely love, based on the novel of the same name. Nathalie (Audrey Tautou), a successful Parisian businesswoman is reeling from the sudden death of her lovely husband Francois (Pio Marmai). For three years she buries herself in her work until one day she's overcome by the urge to kiss her colleague, Markus. The two navigate an initially strange relationship, dealing with Nathalie's emotional baggage and the perpetual raised eyebrows of their peers sitting in judgment of such an apparently mismatched couple. It is pleasant, emotionally satisfying fun to watch the two learn how to be together.
French comic star Francois Damiens, an enormous, balding muppet of a man is Markus, a Swede of the same description opposite Tautou's ethereal Nathalie. Their courtship is awkward at the start, he's just as surprised by it as the audience. After all, Nathalie is perfect, she's effortlessly beautiful, she's successful, her lips softly pouty, etc. etc. you could go on forever. He approaches this sudden turn of events with cautious excitement and a touch of skepticism. He's a realist- there's no way things could possibly work out this well for a regular schlub like Markus.
Damiens gives an excellent performance as Markus, never once turning him into a caricature. Because Markus treats Nathalie as a real person, not just an unachievable dream girl, he too becomes multidimensional. When he voices his trepidation about the relationship, his concerns are valid and the audience can really get on board with Markus despite how physically unimpressive he is at first.
The courtship proceeds in Michel Gondry-esque fits and starts. Key moments between the two play out in poetic visual metaphors; after his stroke of luck with Nathalie, Markus walks home in a haze of happiness, through an onslaught of models who can't take their eyes off him. Markus asks Nathalie to dinner during a chance meeting on the roof of the office and when she says yes, he mimes opening a door for her and suddenly they're walking into a restaurant. Markus and Nathalie have their first date at this crappy Chinese restaurant. They have terrible food and a modestly enjoyable time. It's reminiscent of a similar Chinese restaurant in Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and indeed the filmmakers cite that as a definitive inspiration.
Brothers David and Stéphane Foenkinos deftly handle Delicacy, navigating the perilous waters of romantic comedy well. They avoid getting caught up in eddies of preciousness, dabbling in the whimsical without ever going over the falls into twee territory.
If Delicacy could be summed up in one scene, it would be the moment in which Nathalie and Markus find themselves on a bridge overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Nathalie turns to look at Markus just as the tower erupts in a twinkling light show over her shoulder. His face is frozen in an open mouthed, "Come on!" He tells her this is ridiculous, look at this shot, how could someone like me have something like this. Crap, he's falling in love. He turns on his heels and runs away, leaving Nathalie alone with a proverbial question mark over her head. Again, there's Gondry on his shoulder, chiseling away at the fourth wall, putting the audience's inevitable thoughts right there on the screen.
The French romantic comedy seems to have escaped the doomed fate of its American cousins: If this were an American film, Nathalie would be a Zooey Deschanel Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She'd work in a dog bakery and she'd knit tuxedos for babies to dull the pain of her loss. Instead, Nathalie is successful at a plausible job (something vaguely "business-y" but realistic nonetheless in a very believable semi-drab office space). She lives in a comfortable though not impossibly huge or overly styled apartment. Her wardrobe is comfortable and effortlessly chic in that French way- none of the polka dotted baby doll dresses or high-waisted skirts they're always shoving Zooey into.
Nathalie is heartbreakingly lovely, but she's also just heartbreaking. Her marriage to Francois is adorable and organic, and because he is so wonderful his sudden death is devastating. Tautou plays a broken women with finesse, letting herself wallow in the pain, suddenly throwing away all of her late husband's things, and then throwing herself head first into her work so as to drown out all of her emotion. Hers is a delicate face that, as one might recall from Amelie, can convey childlike joy and the nuances of sadness with the subtlest of changes.
Her heartbreak is lightened with periodic burst of French bluntness, as when her chauvinistic boss takes her to dinner. She walks out on him, then comes back and informs him with a dead straight face that she is sure that she has no good feelings towards him and that especially after this dinner, nothing will ever happen between them and that is a definite. If only everyone could be so direct, there'd be so much less wasted time.
Delicacy is a refreshing take on the romantic comedy, truly droll in a dry French way.
