Amélie is no ordinary girl. Life deals her curious blows: her goldfish slip into the city fountain, her mother dies on the square in front of Notre-Dame cathedral, and her father transfers all his affection to a garden gnome. Amélie grows up and becomes a barmaid in a Montmartre bar run by a former circus performer. Amélie’s life is simple, she likes feasting on crèmes brûlées, skimming stones across the Seine, observing people and letting her imagination roam free. Then, when 22, she suddenly finds her purpose in life: to fix up other people’s troubles. This leads her to invent all sorts of strategies to intervene in the existence of the people around her. Among them the concierge who spends her day sipping port while communing with a stuffed dog; Georgette, the hypochondriac newsdealer; and the “glass man”, Amélie’s neighbor who lives vicariously through a Renoir reproduction. Amélie’s mission is rudely interrupted when she meets a strange, off-beat young man, Nino Quincampoix. Nino works shift jobs on a ghost train and in a sex shop, and collects photos littering the ground outside automatic photo booths. He’s desperately trying to identify the stranger whose photo keeps turning up, when his search is suddenly interrupted by his encounter with Amélie. Although fascinated by him, she plays hide-and-seek games, afraid of really opening up to this appealing young man. After several attempts at getting more serious, she takes to her heels. Fortunately the “glass man”, himself an expert on withdrawal, repays her in kind for all she’s done for him by pushing her into Nino’s arms.