The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
There are no surprises in this film. The quiet brunette girl who looks like she has a crush on the main guy, so much that you think they'll end up together? They end up together. When the main guy and main girl sleep together, and you think she'll probably get pregnant? She'll get pregnant. When that perfectly nice guy shows up and shows interest in the girl while the guy is away in Algeria, and you think they'll get married? They get married. When the final scene takes place in the snow and the girl hasn't been seen for 40 minutes or so, and it seems obvious that they'll run into each other one last time? They run into each other one last time.
Worse, all of the dialogue is sung, opera-style.
And yet, this is an indisputably great movie, warm, not melodramatic even in its very conventional turns. The casting is perfect, the music neither overwhelming nor clichéd, the story structured to bring at least relative happiness to everyone. Evidence, if you needed it, of what good solid writing can do.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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