Intouchables (2011)
Directed by Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano

Film Review

There is little doubt that 2011 has been a vintage year for French cinema.  In a year that saw ticket sales hit a 45-year high and exhibited a diversity of film that most other countries (including the United States) can but envy, the French film industry has never looked healthier.  And this in spite of a worldwide recession from which France has been far from immune.  Two months ago it seemed that Dany Boon's lowbrow comedy Rien à declarer was a safe bet for the most successful French film of the year, with its impressive audience of 8.2 million.  No one expected the cinematic juggernaut that was to come bounding over the horizon towards the year end.  Intouchables was to be the biggest surprise in a year full of surprises.  It smashed the 42-year long box office record previously set by the wartime comedy La Grande vadrouille (1966) within just nine weeks of its first run in France and could yet overtake Boon's mammoth 2008 hit Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis to become the most successful French film to date.  It has already sold 18 million tickets and is still playing to packed houses.  What makes the success of Intouchables most surprising is that it is far from being a conventional French comedy.  Indeed, it deals with a subject that could hardly be more ill-suited for laughs.

The idea for the film first came to directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano in 2001 when they saw a documentary on French television which recounted how the wealthy businessman and tetraplegic Philippe Pozzo di Borgo overcame his extreme physical disability and was able to live a full and active life as a direct result of his friendship with a black carer.  A decade on, having established themselves with three popular mainstream comedies - Je préfère qu'on reste amis (2005), Nos jours heureux (2006) and Tellement proches (2009) - Nakache and Toledano finally felt confident to make a film about Pozzo di Borgo's remarkable story.  The only thing that Pozzo di Borgo insisted upon when the filmmakers sought the rights to his autobiography Le Second Souffle was that they tell his story through the prism of comedy, and not attempt to seek pity.  Nakache and Toledano fulfilled that brief admirably, and in doing so they delivered a film that is quite unlike any other - uproariously funny one moment, genuinely poignant the next - a film that is a testament not only to the durability of the human spirit but also to the power of friendship.  It also reminds us that we should never allow ourselves to blinded by prejudice.  The film's title has a very subtle irony.

At first, Intouchables does just about everything it can to convince us that it is nothing more than an irreverent buddy movie, lowbrow fare intended for the prime time slot on the less respectable French television channels.  It begins with an elaborate set up for a not particularly funny joke whose only reason to be is that it explains the film's title.  (It is not worth the wait.)  First impressions can be very deceptive.  Once you get into it, the film acquires greater meaning and proves to be something far more worthy than is first apparent - an incisive commentary on how society regards the disabled and disadvantaged.  The two main characters in the film - Philippe and Driss (superbly played by François Cluzet and Omar Sy, one of the more successful French film double acts in recent years) - would appear to have nothing in common.  The former is a man of culture and refinement who has lived a privileged and easy life, until the paragliding accident which robbed him of his mobility and will to live.  Driss, his unlikely carer, comes from the other end of the social spectrum, an unemployed, seemingly unemployable black youth who lives in a pokey state-provided hovel in one of the grimmer areas of Paris.  The only thing that connects the two men is that they both appear to have no future.  And yet something magical happens when they meet.  It is like one of those school science experiments where you end up blowing half your face away after mixing the seemingling innocuous contents of two test tubes.  To say that Philippe and Driss each enjoys a new lease of life as a result of their encounter is understating it.  What happens when their insular little worlds collide is like a far-gone star suddenly going supernova - they literally bring each other back from the dead. 

Far from being merely a tame feel-good comedy (as some reviewers have unfairly characterised it), Intouchables is an enriching piece of humanist cinema that forces us to confront some of the deeper and nastier truths about ourselves.  In particular, it challenges our expectations (by dint of the subject matter and its unorthodox treatment) and slyly plays on our propensity for taking things at face value.  Instead of plonking all and sundry into the convenient time-honoured pigeonholes (as black, disabled, immigrant, filthy rich, etc.) we should look for what marks them out as individuals and celebrate diversity, not barren conformity.  The film's central message is simple but one that is effectively rendered: we should never give up on someone just because he or she appears to be a physical or social write-off, and that includes ourselves.  Although it may not have been intended as such, Intouchables also provides a cogent allegory on the importance of immigration in helping to revitalise developed countries.  Without a constant influx of new lifeblood, these countries risk becoming stale and paralysed, both culturally and economically.  The happy outcome of Philippe's meeting with Driss is one that boldly reasserts the worth of the cultural exchange that flows from immigration.

Intouchables treads some serious ground and offers some surprisingly profound insights, but it does so in such a carefree, unselfconscious manner that this appears almost to be accidental (and maybe it was, in part).  The jokes are liberally scattered and are of the kind that are likely to appeal to a mainstream French audience - not particularly sophisticated but irresistibly funny for the most part (although some are a little on the sick side).  The humour is what makes the film fun to watch but that is not what stays with you afterwards.  The reason why the film is so memorable, and probably why it has struck such a chord with French audiences in 2011/2, is because it tackles some sensitive and important subjects (racial tolerance, acceptance of the disabled, etc.) directly, without having to play the obvious emotional cards.  It shows that friendship can be as potent a catalyst for self-renewal as romantic love, it reminds us that we should not rush to judge others, but, most of all, it persuades us of the need to be more willing to embrace the unknown and the unfamiliar, so that we may break free of our cocoons and live a richer and more purposeful life.  If any film deserves to be the biggest French cinema hit ever, this is probably it - an original upbeat comedy that makes us take a long, hard look at ourselves, showing us how things might be if there were a little bit more tolerance and understanding in the world.

Film Synopsis

Crippled by a paragliding accident, wealthy aristocrat Philippe hires Driss, a young man from the suburbs, as his domestic help.  Driss has only recently come out of prison and, on the face of it, could not be more ill-suited for the job.  Yet, somehow, the two men hit it off.  Even though they come from completely different worlds and have completely different tastes in just about everything, they develop a close friendship which is as strong as it is improbable...