I saw Amelie this weekend, a movie I’d not yet heard of, and had little real interest in seeing based on the name alone (not that I’m an amino-acid swilling jock or anything, but you know, chick flick). Couple that with the fact that I was in a group of three where the other two were a couple, and I was left feeling like a lame 5th wheel going alone to a heartwarming romance event.
[Dave interjects] You know that phrase ,”I don’t want to be a 5th wheel.”? Well it seems that everyone except me says, “I don’t want to be a 3rd wheel.” I could swear that the later is incorrect, and people just say it because they’re usually applying it to situations like mine where they are the third of three people. The phrase, though, has nothing to do with the actual number of people present (in my theory), but instead has to do with illustrating how unnecessary one is, as in the case of adding a 5th wheel to a car already with 4. If you were to add a 3rd wheel to a car/bike with only 2, I think you’d be going a long way to making it more stable…rendering it not unnecessary at all. [But I digress…]
I even went so far as giving one of the duo my money to save myself from saying, “One for Amelie, please.”
Despite my fears, though, this was a great movie that I liked to the point of going to see it again with other friends tonight. I’t’s a French film with English subtitles (save for the one 30 second section that is in English with French subtitles, that completely confused me and had me trying to decipher French thinking that the English I was hearing was some strange third language like Brazilian Portugese), and it is engaging and humorous tale of one woman’s quest to change the lives of others (and coincidentally her own) for the better.
I give it 4.5 out of 5 thumbs up.