What makes Audrey Tautou so irresistibly beguiling

I recently watched Amélie (2001) for the first time and have spent several days trying – and failing – to put my finger on what exactly made Audrey Tautou so irresistibly beguiling.

Today, I stumbled upon this beautifully considered passage from an essay by Kathleen Stock in UnHerd:

“Arguably, no other European country has done more to make certain versions of femininity look irresistible, both to women and to men. It’s hard not to equate cultural expressions of femininity with womanhood when they look so bloody beguiling that nobody can see straight. The coltish, gamine, doe-eyed ingénue template was trademarked there, as was the blonde bombshell. A thousand French songwriters have added to the mystique of women with twinkling eyes and a sentimental tremor in their voices. And a thousand French plastic surgeons have artfully improved on the basic model. When Charles Aznavour sang in his most famous tribute that ‘She may be the mirror of my dream’, it is perhaps not surprising that some men took this as a hint.”

Well chosen words like this are what set great writers apart: their ability to crystallise and explain thoughts we all had – to create a "Yes! THAT'S IT!" response.