Vilaine (2008)

I enjoyed watching Vilaine very much. At first, it looked like Amélie. If I didn't watch many French movies, I might have thought that most of them look like this: narrated, many fast, short scenes to describe the characters. I think the plot of Vilaine was very good.

Mélanie (Marilou Berry, very good in this), is an overweight girl who doesn't know how to present herself. I myself think she will okay if she combs her hair well. She spends too much time to help others that she almost has no time for herself. She loves watching romantic movies like Titanic or Love Story and chats with a boy, but frets when he asks her for a photo and then for a rendez-vous. Aurore, Blandine, and Jessica help her, but when Mélanie finds out that they, in fact, want to humiliate her in her first date, she decides to revenge them and becomes the meanest girl ever.


Vilaine (a.k.a. Ugly Melanie) is a entertaining drama-comedy. Not only Aurore, Blandine and Jessica who are punished; but also Mélanie's boss, who treats her and his other employee bad. While Mélanie is not pretty, this other employee is black, illiterate and illegal. The ending is not convincing, though, but perhaps Mélanie likes him because he is the only one who pays attention to her. Two creatures who get worst fate in this movie, I think, is the kitten - who spends days in the dust bin - and the neighbour's lazy dachshund - who is forced to run after a bus. Mélanie herself also learns something, that she goes too far, that she almost ruins Innocent - her only friend's life.