I have to admit that I was not won over by the trailer for The Intouchables, the critically lauded French film about a paralyzed man whose life is flipped, turned upside down when a young black guy who was up to no good started making trouble in his neighbourhood and…. Hold on, that’s the Fresh Prince.
But it is about an unemployed man called Diss (Omar Sy) who has a whole lot of attitude and a love for disco music (they don’t quite portray it like that in the film, I have to say) whose gumption attracts the interest of a wealthy invalid, Philippe (Francois Cluzet), who hires him to bring about a spark of life to his life. Which he does.
And which he does incredibly well. While I had feared The Intouchables would be a painful series of forced “bonding” and sickeningly trite emotion, the two lead actors are incredibly natural and engaging, and the scenes themselves unfold at a slow yet satisfying pace. True, many of the events that create and forge the bond between the two men is only possible due to the fact that Philippe is extremely wealthy, but the friendship that forms seems entirely plausible, thanks to Philippe’s demanding determination and Diss’s complete self confidence. Even a dance scene, where major characters get out and shake their booty, is not the cringeworthy spectacle it could have been but actually seems a bit of fun.
About the only time the film really sets a foot wrong is when a crisis develops in Diss’s life that seems completely manufactured, the record of the film almost audibly “skipping” for a few beats until the discordant section is over and the film gets its groove back.
But, when I say “completely manufactured”, I am of course not sure of what the real events around the story were. Because of course, this film is based on a true story, but exactly that remains “true” and what becomes “story” in these things is always hard to know.
The biggest shock for me (and this in no way spoils the film) was when the final credits rolled and the screen showed the “what happened later” cards, as for a few minutes I struggled to make out who the heck they were talking about. Then, as the “photo now” showed, it suddenly became clear to me that the young black man in the film, Diss, had a completely different name from reality not because of any great reason to protect his identity but because the real “Diss” is actually Arabic (if I am not offending Moroccans by calling them such). It also made Philippe’s move to Morocco make a lot more sense given than knowledge.
That for me raised on of the most interesting questions of the night: why did they make Diss Black rather than keep him of Moroccan descent? It may have been because Omar Sy is an amazing actor and brings an incredible energy to the screen that the casting director decided they could not make the film without him. However, it would be really interested to hear exactly what the rationale was, though I am not sure if I would buy the DVD to get the director’s commentary to find out.
Verdict: The Intouchables is an incredible well crafted movie that had me laughing all the way through. The leads are incredibly engaging, and while the story itself is at times a bit tortured and the way the story unfolds can be seen a couple of kilometres way (this is France, so distance will definitely be metric) and the nigh on two hour duration of the film itself, with all the good will the film generates, I didn’t really mind. 8 fingers out of 10.
No comments:
Post a Comment