At its core, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a love story, and little more. It's the story of a young girl who gets involved with a boy, but when the boy goes off to war and she's left alone (and pregnant), she has to decide whether or not to wait for him or to marry another suitor. It's a fairly typical story, but when it's told in such a charming, rich way as this, it's hard not to be swept up in it. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a musical, one in which every line of dialogue is sung, not spoken. The music carries the entire film, allowing the characters to express themselves not only through their body language, but through the music, the tones, the beats - all of it. It's wonderfully intoxicating and absolutely perfect in tone, through and through, and it keeps you enchanted by all of these characters and their stories. But it's not just the music that makes Cherbourg so perfect; it's the way the story unfolds, changing from a simple love story to a more complex look at those times when love may not be enough, or those times when the world shatters our dreams and leaves us struggling to decide what to do next. The third act of the film becomes something far different than you'd expect based off the first - something more nuanced. something richer, and ultimately something more human than comes with your typical happy love story musical. It all builds to an epilogue that's beautiful and flawless in its bittersweet tone, and caps off an already wonderful movie on a note that turns it from "great" to "magnificent". It's a perfect little gem of a film, one that just made me smile, beginning to end.
- Josh Mauthe
- Josh Mauthe
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