Lookalikes: Tautou, Burrows, Etc.

Below is a picture of Audrey Tautou, a notable French film actress of today:



And here is a picture of Saffron Burrows, an equally notable though slightly less toasted English film actress of these same current times:


Something tells me that I see far more than my share of strong resemblances between two people, though usually these are not at all apparent to others, especially my wife. So I can guess that for them, distinguishing between these two European actresses is no problem at all. But the other day, while looking at a worthwhile new film set in England called "The Bank Job," in which Burrows plays the instigator of the caper, I missed a lot of the beginning exposition because I was convinced that the female lead was being played by Ms Tautou, though I couldn't explain how she could have not the slightest trace of a French accent, nor could I figure out what they could have done to increase her height by about five inches.

Maybe it was because at that moment I was too Tautou-steeped, having just seen one of her films, during which I had spent a lot of time studying her face, to see just what it is about her that makes her the essence of cute, or as if some day I might have to paint her. The answer starts of course with her large, dark, liquid eyes and continues on through her high and well-rounded cheekbones, and then down to the strong yet always gentle lines of her mouth, and the areas surrounding those features.

But the features in the face of this much taller woman in "The Bank Job" have almost exactly the same configuration, complete with the ineffably sweet smile playing constantly in the corners of the mouth.

Though I'm aware that at times the facts do not converge at all with what I think, I like to think that these two ladies are actually twins who were separated at birth (though Burrows is supposedly the older by four years), and one was spirited across the English Channel to Britain, where she grew up to be quite a statuesque young lady, with her height having been influenced in that climate like the trees around here are by the greater need to reach up out of the valley toward the sun.

The baby named Audrey Tautou, on the other hand, stayed behind in the South of France, maybe near Arles, the old stomping grounds of Vincent van Gogh, where there is no shortage of sunlight, and also her growth was restrained somewhat, though to no disadvantage, by the surrounding over-abundance of wine fumes.

To my eye such strong resemblances are especially common between celebrities and the non-celebrated. For instance, I long ago seem to have somehow acquired a position high up on the Good List of a certain otherwise mysterious and highly reserved lady who lives just a few miles from here, and who, give or take a decade or two, is the spitting image of Halle Berry. However, I should say instead that it is Berry's great good fortune that she looks a lot like L., together with almost certainly all three of her daughters, though I haven't seen any of them for periods ranging from eight to as many as 20 years. But L. wouldn't be caught dead allowing her image to be displayed in a moving picture.


Guess who? ...No fair! You cheated!