Lili

Artfully directed by Charles Walters, this moving drama affirms that true love is where reality and magic merge into one. [14 Feb 1999, p.6]

Perhaps too deliberately charming for its own good, but this adaptation of a Paul Gallico novel about a 16-year-old waif who falls unhappily in love with a carnival magician (Aumont), thus adding to the bitterness of the crippled puppeteer (Ferrer) who loves her from afar, is actually rather delightful, thanks to Caron's touching performance and Walters' delicately stylish direction.

[Caron] helps "Lili" to be a lovely and beguiling little film, touched with the magic of romance and the shimmer of masquerade.

Aumont is delightful as the magician and his act with Gabor, staged almost as a production piece, is a high-light.

Mel Ferrer smiles his narcissistic, masochistic smiles as the crippled puppeteer who can speak his love to the 16-year-old orphan girl Lili (Leslie Caron) only through his marionettes. Canon is much too good for him, but the movie doesn't know it.