Neuilly sa mère! (2009) - film review

14-year-old Sami Benboudaoud has his entire world turned upside down when he is uprooted from the immigrant hotspot where he lives and put into the care of his Aunt Djamila, who inhabits an altogether different world in a posh suburb of Paris.  Married to a wealthy man of noble lineage, Djamila immediately begins indoctrinating Sami into the ways of the bourgeoisie, beginning with his manners.  It doesn’t help that Djamila’s son, Charles, is a latent neo-fascist and takes an instant dislike to Sami.  Life at school is barely more tolerable than life at home, but at least Sami has the consolation of seeing Marie, the most beautiful girl in the world...

The critical reaction to Gabriel Laferrière’s debut feature Neuilly sa mère! was predictably mixed.  A daring attempt to look on the lighter side of racial prejudice and class divisions in modern day France, the film has much going for it but its impact is somewhat diminished by the coarseness of its caricature and its reliance on dated clichés.  The film was a moderate success in France but is unlikely to be appreciated abroad as it appears to have been conceived for a mainstream home market.  Unbearably crude and vulgar in places, often tedious in its superficial handling of delicate themes, the film is difficult to engage with, even offensive, if you take the subject of racism seriously.

© filmsdefrance.com 2012

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