De vrais mensonges

Plot

Émilie (Audrey Tautou), co-owner of a hair salon, receives an anonymous love letter from her worker Jean (Sami Bouajila) who, unknown to Émilie, is highly educated but took up the handy-man job in the salon after a depression. Émilie doesn't fall for the love letter but passes it on to her mother Maddy (Nathalie Baye) who is depressed since the breakup of her marriage. Maddy falls for the love letter and is in high spirits again. Jean's high education as a translator in several Asian and European languages is uncovered in a verbal fight in Chinese with two women. Émilie is now fearing criticism from Jean as her education is no match to his.

In the meanwhile Maddy is losing her high spirits as no new letter arrives. Émilie then writes new anonymous letters to her mother, but the letters style get heavily criticised for the lack of style and emotion. To avoid Jean he is sent out to do errands, posting the mail is one of them and when he runs out of stamps he delivers one letter by himself, another anonymous faux love letter from Émilie to Maddy. Jean is being witnessed posting the letter and Maddy follows him back to the salon and consequently she flirts with whom she believes is her secret admirer.

Cast

Production

The film was shot on location at Sète in Languedoc-Roussillon.

Reception

Xan Brooks from The Guardian gave the film two out of five stars and stated "Audrey Tautou plays stupid cupid in this excitable comedy, a cut-price, candy-coated update on Jane Austen's Emma that bounces along the marina at Sete with its blood sugar through the roof." Brooks added that Bouajila was the only actor who "emerges with his dignity relatively intact." TVNZ's Darren Bevan gave the film six out of ten and commented "Beautiful Lies is a piece of French fluff; beautifully shot in a bright French town - it has all the breeziness within but is insubstantial and instantly forgettable."