Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Karl Self This is a nice romantic comedy about a French farmer who needs a wife (or cheap labourer) to run his farm, and who gets hitched to a young Romanian girl who needs money to raise her daughter.The big problem with this movie is that the girl is tragically miscast. She is played by a talented young actress, who unfortunately can't patch over the fact that she is so painfully clearly out of her love interest's league. She's one of those surreally waifish girls the French adore so much. It's a case of the beauty and the beast, and it just doesn't hold water. Apart from that, a good movie. Until the farmer's visit to Romania to pick up his wife, it's a hilarious comedy, after that it's a complex (if implausible), and surprisingly intriguing, love story.Michel Blanc is brilliant in a very difficult role. He's at the same time pompous and boyish, and would be the ideal match for an unlikely love story.The unsung star of this movie is the entremetteuse, Eva Darlan. She is vivacious, beautiful and terribly funny. The movie loses a lot when she drops out of the plot. I think she would have been a much better, and not least much more credible, Elena.Another problem with this movie is that they picked Romania as the rent-a-bride's country of origin. Fifteen years ago this would have been believable. Nowadays everybody knows that Romania isn't so bad as to make pretty girls so desperate to leave it that they'd gladly hitch up to a middle-aged French hillbilly. I don't understand why the writer didn't pick a more exotic and desperate country, Albania maybe or Ossietia or whatever.If you're looking for humour and don't mind a hefty dollop of implausible romance, this is your movie.

john-575 Each year in Australia Alliance Francaise in conjunction with Palace Cinemas run a French Film Festival in Feb/Mar 2007 which brings out a wide selection of the previous years best french films all sub titled in English for those francophiles here but who are not able to understand the spoken word.2007 we had a wide selection of films, Depardieu, Romain Duris and this small gem I'm reviewing here. Truly it was the pick of the whole festival and by a country mile.http://www.frenchfilmfestival.org/vi...4/Default.aspxI have not seen Michel Blanc before who must be in his late 50s. THe female lead Medeea Marinescu is actually Romanian and plays a Romanian woman who Michels character brings her to France when after his wife dies he finds himself short of hot meals, clean clothes and help around the farm. Since there are few prospects for a wife in the area, he engages a marriage agency to find some help.Medeea's character and performance in this film are fantastic. You can find her other work at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0547614/ I just hope this film opens some more doors for her. If you like warm hearted, romantic comedies this is cream. Deep down I believe every man is looking for an Elena SPOILER AHEAD At the end of the film I would be running towards Elena. I'm not sure if Ayme does. If a local distributor does not pick this up they are mad (12 months later this has not happened in Australia)A word of thanks to Antonio the boss of Palace Cinemas who was sitting in the foyer of the Westgarth Cinema last night and was kind enough to open the door for me when I was making my way back with a couple of hot chocolates and a brownie. Australia cinema goers and film festival fans have so much to thank you and your family for. Westgarth since you took over has a real buzz. We are very lucky to have a film enthusiast like you running a cinema chain. (If anyone saw the story of Anthonio's family story on ABC Dynasty series recently you will know what I mean. http://www.abc.net.au/dynasties/txt/s1790161.htm

bido77 I hadn't expect to like this movie. It deals with things from my country I desperately wanted to escape from - lack of money, desperation, the small price a woman can ask for herself. And I hadn't really liked a Romanian movie eversince I was a child and I was watching silly communist movies. But this movie had good credentials and people close to me had enjoyed it, so when I had the chance I watched it, first with prejudiced disgust, then with interest and at the end with emotion. It is a lovely movie, about not so lovely people that in the end turn out to be just fabulous. It is the first movie about ugly Romania that I actually enjoyed watching. I am grateful for that.

bstrachan-2 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.