A slow starter of a movie, it needs a bit of time to explain the main character's background and wide-eyed innocence. In fact, its a little confusing how Leslie Caron wanders about her life and drifts through her potential carnival job until she...
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A slow starter of a movie, it needs a bit of time to explain the main character's background and wide-eyed innocence. In fact, its a little confusing how Leslie Caron wanders about her life and drifts through her potential carnival job until she meets the "puppets", the first "characters" she really interacts with.

From here on its an odd transition for Lili into a woman who performs with puppets but longs for a magician and competes in her mind with his assistant/wife (played by the rather unidimensional Zsa Zsa Gabor). While the puppets seem creepy to many, they actually are fairly typical as sideshow attractions, and of course, mask the "Cyrano" feelings of their animator, played by Mel Ferrer.

Eventually, after some weird fantasies where the puppets become life-size and intermix with their creator, Lili makes her fateful and happy choice - but ultimately, despite a sense of story - I never like Lili very much to begin with. There's just not enough there.