Column: When nothing else is, go simple: a V-day lesson

Don’t tell me your love life is complicated.

Follow this: Paolo is an Italian bus driver who is engaged to a German stewardess by the name of Greta, but he starts to fall for a French girl on a bicycle named Cécile, who has two Australian kids.

Oh, and he’s best frieds with a British guy named David who seems to be a catalyst to the entire situation.

With such a convoluted, multicultured plot, I’m just thankful it comes with a simple title, “Girl on a Bicycle.”

Though critics aren’t raving about the Valentine’s Day release, the film seems to promise a quirky yet witty simplicity that reminds me of a Woody Allen flick.

But I’m not a film critic.

What I can tell you is that the film had great potential to have an amazingly vogue costume design.

But costume designer Catherine Leterrier decided not to.

Leterrier is most famous for her work in “Coco Before Chanel” in 2009, which gave her an Oscar nomination and France’s prestigious César award.

Her designs were brilliant.

They not only showcased Coco Chanel’s early style selections but contrasted them with the extravagance of her late nineteenth-century, early twentieth-century French peers.

So, when Leterrier signed on to “Girl on a Bicycle” with Indiana native Jeremy Leven, screenwriter of “The Notebook,” I was expecting her to suit the multi-cultured cast each with their particular brand of Euro-chic.

Instead, we see solid color oxfords for Paolo, plain blouses for Cécile and a graphic tee with an unnecessary short sleeve plaid button-up.

The most exciting piece shown was Greta’s stewardship uniform or possibly Paolo’s tacky red tie worn during his bus tour shift.

Oh, or the kid’s dinosaur pajamas.

But what the designs do happen to do is offer simplicity to a topic — love — that can be anything but.

No design threatens the dialogue or has me daydreaming of some French boutique.

It’s natural, and it goes with the subtleness of the film while serving as a realistic alternative to the pressed Euro-chic stereotype.

I’ll confess, my first time in Paris, I was an underwhelming teenage American tourist with denim, converse and a Nikon.

Don’t be that.

But don’t ignore the bliss in the understated effortlessness of a European look or your relationship.

And though you may still plan to spend V-day with a lover and Chanel No. 5, or with indulgent German chocolates like me, just remember that it’s okay to be simple, and sometimes the best things should be.

Share your favorite simple selections. Be mine.

— kcollisi@indiana.edu

Follow columnist Kelsey Collisi on Twitter @kelcollisi.