"Blind Date" 

By: Tyler English

Blind Date is a 2015 French romantic comedy film that is both directed, and starred by Clovis Cornillac. Melanie Bernier, Lilou Fogli and Philippe Duquesne are French actresses who also played huge roles in this film as well. 

Melanie Bernier, who is an extremely shy woman in the film has just moved to an apartment in Paris. She had been living with her piano teacher, but is now pursing her own pianist career on her own. Her first night she hears strange noises and a picture on her wall begins to move so she made a visit to her former home where her piano teacher resides. Once she returns back to her own home, she realizes that the noises she is hearing is being made by her neighbor. He explains to her that the walls separating their homes are hollow and that almost every noise can be heard. He purposely makes unnecessary noise when a new tenant moves in to try to scare them off, but Melanie was not going for that. Clovis Cornillac, her next door neighbor is a puzzle creator who needs his peace and silence, while she is a accomplished pianist who is preparing for a competition that could change her whole life. This is difficult for the both of them and they are required to coexist in order to succeed in what they both want. 

Despite how such a good film Blind Date is, I don't believe it was eligible to be considered a Best Foreign Film according to the list of rules. Blind Date was in fact played in a commercial theatre in it's home country for at least a week, and also the dialogue in the film was predominantly non-english. I think what kept this film from being eligible was that the "creative control" was not largely in the hands of the citizens and was largely in the hands of Clovis Cornillac, and possibly a few others. I say this because when watching , you can feel the originality of this film and can tell that the Director and writer wanted this one way and one way only. I highly think this film still should have been eligible due to it being such an amazing watch.