The truth in Beautiful Lies

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MANILA, Philippines - Through pieces of stained glass he alternately removes and affixes on the window, Jean watches Émilie.

Émilie, I live for the joy of watching you. My eyes are my heart, my eyes are my lungs. If I close them when you pass, my whole body cries out for air.

By the narrow door, Jean turns his whole body sideways to let Émilie pass through.

Émilie, you brush past me, and each time I feel such joy. Émilie, you brush past me and each time I suffer. Too much love and not enough courage make me a ghost.

You’re beautiful, perplexing, never disappointing. I’ll never possess you. I’m inconsolable. All the same, Émilie, please accept my sincere, feverish and anonymous feelings.

There couldn’t have been a more appropriate beginning for this hilarious comedy of errors, Jean  the anonymous love letter’s writer  didn’t think would be snowballed by an honest outpouring of his feelings for his employer, the lovely salon owner, Émilie. But, Émilie, at the end of her wits as to how to get her mother out of depression caused by separation from her husband, saw redemption in the uplifting words scrawled on the letter and took the liberty to replace Émilie with Maddy, in the hopes that the loving words may spring her mother back to life, even if in truth, those words  never intended for Maddy  were nothing but Beautiful Lies (De vrais mensonges).

The French movie topbilling Audrey Tautou (of the Amélie fame) was produced in 2010, but I stumbled upon it only two weeks ago from among the movies copied by a friend onto my hard drive. And so I watched it and found myself both laughing and crying and thinking through all 100 minutes of it. I thought to myself, how could a story so simple be poignantly touching, hysterically hilarious and deeply existential all at once?

And then I thought that the movie’s strength, indeed, lies precisely in that  its simplicity. The plot is pretty straightforward  Jean writes Émilie an anonymous love letter, which Émilie then sends to her mother, Maddy, who accidentally discovers the author of the original letter when Jean  Maddy’s salon’s repair and maintenance guy  delivers by hand the second letter sent supposedly by Maddy’s secret admirer (but which was really written by Émilie). Maddy then begins to pursue and encourage Jean to follow through to what she thought were his feelings for her. What ensues is a comedic turn of events resulting mainly from Émilie’s attempts to keep the truth of her blunder, first from Jean  and when honesty to Jean about what’s going on became impossible– and then from her mother, who Émilie knew was going to be devastated by discovery of Émilie’s machinations.

The story’s simplicity is not to be mistaken with dullness. In fact, the interesting turn of events acquires their ability to surprise from this false sense of placidness. The viewers’ experience of surprise is heightened because they spring on one unawares and when one least expects it.

Who would have thought that the depressed, barefoot and sleeping robe-donning Maddy would trail who she thought was her secret admirer all the way to her daughter’s salon in the center of town? Who would have predicted that Jean would  after much persuasion from Émilie  agree to go along with Émilie’s plan to play the part of Maddy’s suitor, against his better judgment and unique quandary (to or to not play suitor to the mother of the woman he loves?), and later develop into a character  angry, vengeful  so different from the one introduced to us at the beginning of the movie  sweet, kind  and we almost wonder whether at this point he still loves the woman who had previously inspired such an honest, gripping declaration of love. And, finally, who would have foreseen the movie’s climax featuring another scheme yet, this time by Maddy, who feigns innocence still of Émilie’s machinations and goes ahead with a previously arranged romantic, sensual dinner with Jean to spite her daughter, a final act of deception to cap  and maybe surpass  all deceptions suffered by her.

Yes, the movie surprises. And it does that so effectively because the viewer feels the truth in the story’s developments and in the characters. He never feels that there was a conspiracy among the filmmaker, the movie’s characters, luck, heavens and indeed the universe; no deliberate, apparent effort for him to feel  if falsely  as though he was pulled into the situation the characters find themselves in. The turn of events was so effortlessly natural that (extraordinary) luck or coincidence almost did not figure. The viewer never feels that there was a connivance of forces, and that is why the empathy that he feels for the characters are real.

Weren’t we shocked as Émilie was shocked when  during a conversation with her mother as to how the date  the first  with Jean (a date Émilie herself arranged) went, Maddy gaily recounts details of her and Jean’s conversation, and casually mentions that Jean knew the contents of the first letter by heart  Émilie realizes that her own secret admirer was no less than the man she was forcing to date her mother. And weren’t we shamed ourselves when Maddy  at Émilie’s salon having her legs and other parts waxed in preparation for the big dinner date  overhears the confrontation between Émilie and Jean revealing everything including Émilie’s decision to put an end to the charade.

Even before these dramatic situations, the viewer has already empathized with the characters. The characters are so ordinarily real that anybody human is bound to relate to their state of being, experiences and responses to their circumstances.

Who, above 15, could not relate to Maddy and her broken heart-induced depressive state and desire to be left alone because she just “wants to be sad?” And who could claim to not have experienced the same spring to one’s steps as Maddy had when the promise of a new love appeared? Who would not admire her when she had no illusions of a lasting love with Jean, because she was well aware that “he’s 20 years younger than me, of course I’m bound to suffer!” and just wanted to enjoy the present?

What good daughter or friend could not relate to Émilie’s attempts to get a loved one out of a rut? And what employee (especially one that constantly does mental work) would not agree with Jean when he told his bewildered employer  after an episode that showed him arguing vehemently with Chinese salon customers in Chinese  that he applied for a job at the salon after spotting the advertisement which called for a man to do “repair and maintenance” because those two words  repair and maintenance  “comforted” him after holding a high-pressure job at the UNICEF in Paris.

The movie comes full circle and ends, with what else, but a lie! Jean and Émilie are brought back together by an anonymous love letter written by Maddy, “signed” by Émilie, and sent to Jean.

Jean: Truth counts in a relationship. Emilie: It’s fundamental.

(The author, 29, does communications work for a non-government organization.)