2 secondes

This is a sweet & simple French-Canadian film about an ex-racing cyclist (played by Charlotte Laurier in that weird & aloof way that French actresses use to express nearly all their emotions) who finds herself working as a courier just so she can ride her bike. I found some of the acting (especially by the English-speakers in the first ten minutes) to be stiff & high-schooly, but once everyone's able to speak French, it goes much more smoothly.

The plot, as above, might be dull if there weren't an amazing character like Lorenzo, the ex-racer from Italy (played with all the requisite gruff & creaks by Dino Tavarone) who runs the bicycle shop that Laurier has to take her bike to. He's able to put her life in perspective & the long scene in the middle of the film in which he talks about his "big race" is some of the finest one-on-one filmmaking I've seen in ages.

The film has some nice, adrenalin-filled moments but the heart of the story is more sedate, involving relativity & finding out what is important in one's life. It's not sappy or saccharin, but it's not something you'll entirely relate to, either. You'll enjoy the performances & forgive the eccentricities (the revelation about the main character's sexuality, thrown in somewhere in the middle, seemed woefully out of place) &, if you're like me, you'll want to go out & ride a bike for a while.

This is a movie about a young (well, 28 years young) French Canadian woman (Laurie) who is as crazy about riding her bicycle as Pee-Wee Herman was about finding his bicycle. There's so much bicycle riding in this movie, that - be warned! - your fanny might get sore from all of it!

I liked this movie for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that it just rolled along at a delightfully capricious pace. Though the movie coverd a lot of details about Laurie's and Lorenzo's respective lives (Laurie's in the present, Lorenzo's in the past), it never once bogged down. It just hummed along like, well, like a well-tuned bicycle. The background music is just plain FUN - it grooves, and really adds to the whole look and feel of a fun, cute movie.

The cinematography was excellent, you couldn't take your eyes off the screen, which was important, because they often used lots of rapid fire scene shots that - if you blinked, you might have missed something telling.

The acting was basically between Laurie and Lorenzo (Charlotte Laurier and Dino Tavarone), both of whom were superb. I especially liked Charlotte Laurier, who *absolutely* charmed and confounded me with her pixie-like appearance and performance. After she appeared with the close-cropped hair, I swear I thought she was Pinocchio!

Now, if I may indulge in a little capriciousness of my own... Later in the film, staying with Laurie's appearance, I had a flashback to the film "La Strada" - and Ms. Laurier's facial expressions started to remind me a lot of Giuletta Masina, who played the unfortunate waif (Gelsomina) in that movie. Then, still later, I couldn't shake the thought that Laurie's face looked like a morphed combination of Matthew Broderick and Mia Sara from the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (Mia Sara played Sloane, Ferris' girlfriend in that movie. The morphed combo of the two was all over Ms. Laurier's face, IMHO...) Oh well, see the film, you'll be amazed and delighted by Laurie's facial expressions.

One final comment: I was surprised to see a few scenes where Laurie, in near dusk conditions, was seen to be street-riding her bike, wearing rather dark (or at least, not "neon" or reflective) clothing, without a helmet, and without any visible blinkers, flashers or reflectors on her bike. Since I ride a bike myself in-town, I feel it my humble duty to mention, that this is not a real safe way to ride.

But do see this film, There's no one (other than a real grouch) who could not like it!

I loved this quirky movie in English and then French with subtitles. The initial (English) scenes at a downhill mountain-bike race at Mammoth Mountain is great although I would have like more of the dh racing 'cause it is a hoot. However, the scene in the bike shop where Lorenzo throws out a customer who had the audacity to ask the price of the fine Italian road bike in the window is priceless. All bike-shop owners should be like Lorenzo. The fact that the heroine is a lesbian and there are a few sex scenes didn't bother me, and I'm as straight as an arrow--sexually speaking that is. I found the acting great with only a few exceptions in minor characters.