I love Audrey Tautou. She’s far from the world’s greatest actress, and she appears in more bad films than good, but I just can’t help but watch any new film she appears in. She can turn what would typically be an insufferable two hours into an enjoyable way to waste away the time. However, even with my love for the elfin beauty, Delicacy is trite, irritating and poorly judged.

It is a forced romantic comedy using the springboard of a spousal bereavement to force together an opposites attract couple. If that sounds like a hard sell then it is and the film fails spectacularly to try and make you buy into a single relationship on screen. The early and smugly perfect marriage lasts all of 15-minutes before a fatal accident cuts short their marital bliss. Unfortunately, the filmmakers are unable to make you care about this marriage using tacky and empty romantic gestures to illustrate how happy the insufferable couple are. Even when the husband has shuffled off this mortal coil (yay) things fail to pick up with Miss Tautou starting a strained relationship with a Swedish co-worker.

He couldn’t be more different than her deceased husband, he is awkward, nerdy and frankly a loser. Sadly, both she and the audience view him the same way so it is an out of balance relationship and one that is impossible to buy into. The film is jam packed with romcom cliche, obvious musical cues and tacky sentimentality. Tautou is given little to do or work with whereby her entire emotional range is expressed in two facial expressions: sorrowful mourning and doe-eyed romantic prospect.

All the stars are for Audrey’s involvement.