In 2011, "Intouchables", starring Omar Sy and François Cluzet, touched the hearts of 20 millions French viewers through the unlikely friendship between a street-smart guy of African background and a white paraplegic millionnaire. The film met with international acclaim and made former TV comedian Omar Sy a star. Despite its obvious formula, there was a genuine sincerity and comedy never felt forced. Driven by such a success, Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache made a similarly driven-by-good-sentiments comedy in 2014, but the formula doesn't work and the script feel more like a calculated effort to duplicate "Intouchables"
Samba Cissé, an Senegalese illegal immigrant, is the protagonist of a tale full of clichés and contrivances that severely undermine the message and create such an overdose of saccharine it's a miracle it remained reasonably watchable till the ending. Not a single character is capable to transcend overused tropes, starting wth Samba himself. Struggling to make ends meet and keep a low profile to avoid paper controls, he's got a nice smile and a sweet voice obviously meant to contrast with his athletic noticeability but never is his desperateness so great he can act beyond the obvious sanctification he's subjected to. The level of gentleness he conveys in some scenes confines to dim-wittedness, but that's not a reflection on Sy, the blame is on the script.
I actually liked the opening sequence: no words, just a fancy restaurant with a long shot panning over the kitchen where migrants are working, obviously not the same profile than the customers. The film has a fair documentary value as it highlights the situations of migrants, doing petty and ungrateful jobs such as cleaning skyscraper windows, recycling garbage, and maybe there's a statement that these people are doing the jobs 'good citizens' refuse to, dirtying their hands or risking their necks. It would have been nice to have a few counter-examples instead of just preaching that all illegal migrants are driven by the best intentions. The narrative plays it safe, it's polished to the level of artificial blandness, and only comedy can spice up the material, but that's not saying much..
I already had a bad feeling when we were introduced to the two social workers, Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Alice a post-burnout businesswoman with a nervous speech pattern and who can't open her bag without spilling pills and cachets all over the table. No depressed individual would expose these "details" but the script insists on exposing her as a neurotic. And what better conversation-starter with Samba? Her experienced colleague Manu (Izia Higelin) as her masculine nickname indicates, is the sharpshooter meant to highlight Alice's insecurity. When she sets off the metal detector, she shows a belly button ring. Then it beeps again a little lower. "you want a picture, sorry can't show this, can you let us come?" I couldn't believe a cop would let anyone get away with that attitude. But since Many is the comic relief, she's got to be Mrs. One-Liner.
Everyone in "Samba" is an archetype whose actions follow a pre-written status: the comic relief, the voice of reason etc. There's a running-gag about Manu warning Alice over keeping some distance from the migrants and not give her phone number. Of course, she does. When Manu asks Alice if she did, Alice's nervous "no, of course" was supposed to be a joke. Ha ha. And it doesn't help that both actresses overplay their roles and that the two end up falling in love with two migrants, conveying the absurd notion that an attraction to exotic individuals had a little bearing on their endeavor.
And so we get an embarrassing scene where she asks Samba to put on a shirt, peep over his torso and make him an object of interracial fantasy "Intoucbables" had almost flirted with such voyeurism when it made Driss a terrific dancer admired by little 'bourgeois' but it worked. However, they felt the need to add a striptease session with Tahar Rahim as Wilson -the other migrant who pretends to be Brazilian- in front of cheerful female office workers. I have less a problem with that scene than its pretentious gratuitousness, there could be a subtle point to make about a certain white female gaze on ethnic men, and the way it can be cleverly exploited by these very targets, but the film didn't aim that high.
Anyway, after a nice party meant to elicit our admiration toward social workers, Mrs. One-LIner finally falls in love with Wilson precisely because she has a crush on Latinos, not only the subplot never really pays off but it contradicts her character who's supposed to be so smart she wouldn't fall in such a trap, The attempts of a romantic comedy are forced and clunky and in fact the whole premise is ruined by Alice being in love with Samba while the two had better chemistry friendship-wise.
As I said, Sy was good, and I liked Isaka Sawadogo as his uncle Jonas. The thing is that his gentleness is needlessly emphasized so the closest to a bad action is when he ends up having an affair with the fiancée of a fellow Senegalese he met in the camps. Instead of bringing some trouble with the Law, it's all a McGuffin to make Samba stay in France. The preposterous ending was a copout because it prevented to raise the question: if he couldn't get his papers, couldn't he just marry Alice? The directors don't even dare to raise an important point about marriage-in-name.
That would have been an interesting dilemma because I could never see them together. In a scene where they have their first intimate moments, a plumbery incident makes her so hysterical I couldn't see him spending his life with her... And so I tried to see the film differently, imagining Samba as a manipulative fellow trying to marry Alice, get his papers and get the hell out. Not a good sign when a plot looks better from a cynical angle.
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