1399. Blind Date (2015)

Starring: Mélanie Bernier, Clovis Cornillac, Lilou Fogli

Director: Clovis Cornillac

Running Time: 90 mins

Blind Date (Un peu, beaucoup, aveuglément!) is a French film about a man and woman living in separate apartments, but can hear everything the other does through a flaw in the architecture of their buildings. Despite their differing lifestyles, the two begin to develop a relationship as if they’re living together, but are never able to see one another.

As cheesy and silly as this film is, I’m afraid to say that I quite enjoyed it. It is clearly a wannabe Amélie that never really reaches those heights, but it’s a cute, quirky film full of heart and joy from start to finish, and it’s that that helped me look past some of its flaws and tropes to have a really fun time watching it.

Now, I’m not going to pretend that this is a brilliant movie, because it’s not, and for a large portion of the running time, it sits right on the edge of becoming annoyingly quirky and totally preposterous. The premise of the two neighbours effectively living together but never seeing each other is ridiculous, but if you can get over that, it’s not hard to be won over by the film’s positive and upbeat vibes, something that you have to credit director Clovis Cornillac with.

Much like Amélie, the cuteness and quirkiness are the most memorable aspects of the film, but there is a good degree of comedy there too. The slapstick and bigger gags don’t always pay off, but the writers did a good job at making the complicated relationship between the neighbours a lot more entertaining than you’d expect, and because of that, I was able to get wrapped up in the silly romance and forget about how cheesy everything about the movie was.

What’s more is that the performances are pretty good. Again, it’s a very easy-going and light rom-com, but the four main actors still put in interesting performances for their characters whilst retaining an air of that silliness, and as a result, it’s surprisingly easy to care about their lives, something that a lot of normal romantic comedies don’t do at all well.

Overall, I really enjoyed this film. It’s by no means a classic, and definitely doesn’t match up to the likes of Amélie, but it is a relentlessly quirky and cute romantic comedy that uses its positive attitude to make an entertaining and easy-going watch throughout, and that’s why I’m giving Blind Date a 7.3.