Audrey Tautou once again shows her flair for light comedy playing Emilie, the bossy owner of a hair salon in a seaside town in the south of France. When she receives an anonymous love letter from an admirer, she has the brilliant idea of redirecting it to try to cheer up her mopey mother Maddy, played by Nathalie Baye. This sets off a chaotic string of mistaken identities, misunderstandings and very awkward moments. Salvadori’s energetic homage to the romantic comedies of Hollywood’s Golden Age brings out the best in his stellar cast, managing to make them hugely likable despite their questionable behavior. Blending slapstick humor with darker undercurrents, Beautiful Lies makes clever fun of literary pretensions, the hairdressing world and the eternal embarrassments of love and desire.

De vrais mensonges, France 2010, 105 min. Written by Benoît Graffin, Pierre Salvadori. Photographed by Gilles Henry. With Audrey Tautou, Nathalie Baye, Sami Bouajila. Wild Bunch.