Toledano and Nakache seem determined to avoid such cliches, even as they give in to other crowdpleasing gimmicks (namely, that U.S. “When I let myself go, it’s a massacre,” she jokes - a wink to the less inhibited character she played in “Nymphomaniac.” Alice is quite the opposite: Pent up and burned out from 15 years as a white-collar workaholic, she has problems opening up, and the interracial kiss, when it comes, is played for tenderness rather than provocation.Ĭlearly, the most obvious solution to their problems would be for the two characters to couple up and get married, thereby giving Samba legal grounds to stay in France, but the pic isn’t so predictable. Samba’s situation is complicated by a broken promise to a friend (Issaka Sawadogo) he met in lockup, when his selfless attempt to track down the guy’s lost g.f.
“Samba” divides its time between these two characters, flirting with the possibility of romance, while recognizing that such things are typically trickier than the movies make them out to be. Against the advice of her more thick-skinned co-worker, Manu (Izia Igelin), she starts to care about Samba, taking his case personally - so personally that she steals the baby photo from his file and displays it on her nightstand at home. Alice is new to the job and not yet jaded enough to ignore the human being sitting across the table. He’s resourceful enough to have avoided the authorities for nearly 10 years, but now that he’s been busted, his entire existence seems to be in jeopardy.Įnter Alice (Gainsbourg, cast wildly against type), a mousy white woman assigned to his case.
By contrast, no one would mistake Samba for a buffoon: He’s a strong, complex personality working in proximity to his dream - to become a chef - via an off-the-books job in a Paris restaurant.
This was also one of the helmers’ goals with “The Intouchables,” though some (including Variety) took issue with its racial politics. Loosely adapted from Delphine Coulin’s novel “Samba pour la France,” Toledano and Nakache’s unabashedly sentimental script invites audiences to sympathize with the sort of character they see everyday, but seldom stop to interact with - just as “Spanglish” was supposed to do in the States, though “Samba” achieves far more satisfying results. Whereas that pic exploited certain stereotypes, “Samba” aims to address the underlying racism. phenom, “Serial (Bad) Weddings,” in which a father freaks out when all four of his daughters marry foreigners. Given the country’s widespread concern with immigration and integration (not just resistance to the arrival of outsiders, but objections to how they adapt to the Gallic way of life), xenophobia has been the pervasive subtext of French cinema for at least the past decade - if not the text itself, as in this year’s runaway B.O. Using the team’s slick populist sensibility for good, “Samba” offers earnest progressive messaging in a broadly appealing package. It speaks volumes about the trio’s priorities that they decided to challenge themselves and their built-in mainstream audience with “ Samba,” a more-serious-than-not cross-cultural romance starring Sy as a Senegalese dishwasher with feelings for the immigration caseworker (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who could be his last chance at staying in Paris. After the runaway success of “The Intouchables,” French writing-directing duo Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache were positioned to tackle nearly any project they pleased, especially if comedic muse Omar Sy agreed to be involved.
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