De vrais mensonges

De vrais mensonges is a 2010 French comedy-romance film starring Audrey Tautou and directed by Pierre Salvadori. The screenplay was written by Salvadori and Benoît Graffin.

De vrais mensonges
Film poster
Directed by	Pierre Salvadori
Written by	Salvadori Benoît Graffin
Produced by	Philippe Martin
Starring	Audrey Tautou Nathalie Baye Sami Bouajila Stéphanie Lagarde
Cinematography	Gilles Henry
Edited by	Isabelle Devinck
Music by	Philippe Eidel
Production companies	Les Films Pelléas TF1 Films Production Tovo Films
Distributed by	Pathé
Release date	8 December 2010 (2010-12-08)
Running time	104 minutes
Country	France
Language	French
Budget	€12.4 million[1]
Box office	$4.8 million[1]

It was distributed in English-speaking countries under the titles Beautiful Lies and Full Treatment.^[2]

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 handyman job in the salon after a bout of depression. Émilie doesn't fall for the love letter but passes it on to her mother Maddy (Nathalie Baye) who has been depressed since the breakup of her marriage. Maddy falls for the love letter and is in high spirits again. Jean's high level of education as a translator in several Asian and European languages is revealed 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 meantime, Maddy is losing her spirits as no new letter arrives. Émilie then writes new anonymous letters to her mother, but Maddy heavily criticizes them for their lack of style and emotion. To avoid Jean, Émilie sends him out to do errands, posting the mail being 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. Maddy sees Jean putting the letter in her letterbox and follows him back to the salon. Consequently believing him to be her secret admirer Maddy flirts with him.

Cast

• Audrey Tautou as Émilie
• Nathalie Baye as Maddy, mother of Émilie
• Sami Bouajila as Jean
• Stéphanie Lagarde [fr] as Sylvia, partner with Émilie in the hair salon "Les intondables"
• Judith Chemla as Paulette, a timid employee
• Daniel Duval as father of Émilie

Production

Filming began on 8 June 2009. De vrais mensonges was mostly shot in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, except for two days spent in Paris. Filming was completed on 5 August.^[3]

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."^[4] Brooks added that Bouajila was the only actor who "emerges with his dignity relatively intact."^[4] 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."^[5]

See also

• List of French films of 2010