LITTLE Amelie Poulain loses her mother in an unfortunate collision with a suicidal tourist, whereupon she grows up in a fantasy world of her own wild, exaggerated imagination.

Leaving the stifling, sheltered suburbs behind her, where better to strike out for independence than in the most romantic, fantastical big city of them all, Paris.

From the maker of the delirious Delicatessen, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, comes an intoxicating comedy drama now given an extensive British release after enchanting five million people in its Gallic homeland, and I do urge all those with an aversion to subtitles to break through that barrier to let quirky Amelie work her happiness magic on you.

Once in Paris, Amelie mixes waitressing in a Montmartre caf with embarking on her mission in life: a mission that starts the moment she hears of the death of another saintly figure, Diana, the People's Princess. She believes her vocation is to right wrongs, to set romantic assignations in motion and secretly improve the lives of every lost soul around her, be it lonely neighbours or her father's garden gnome, initially neglecting her own romantic destiny until a strange photo album comes into her possession.

Amelie's social work of the soul might be considered meddling by some (Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream has not always had a good press), and others have even deemed her methods to be Happiness Fascism.

However, for all the irresistible, innocent charms of newcomer Audrey Tautou - a brown-eyed girl with the gamin demeanour of Audrey Hepburn - Amelie's own passage to love with a fellow outsider is a bumpy one, a sign that she too needs a helping hand.

Tautou is a star in waiting. Director Jeunet is a star re-born, an audacious visionary director who tickles and seduces the viewer with his whimsical Technicolor humour and cartoon energy, rather than assaulting the senses in the style of Baz Luhrmann, whose Moulin Rouge had presented a loud, dazzling, high-kicking Paris.

Here the magic administered by Amelie is the stuff of fairytales, the darkness of Delicatessen replaced by optimism. If you still need a soundbite to summarise the Parisian Prozac of Amelie, think of Jacques Tati directing Bridget Jones's Diary.

Do not let this escapist wonder escape you.