Neuilly sa mère! (2009)
Directed by Gabriel Laferrière

Film Review

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.

Film Synopsis

Sami Benboudaoud is fourteen and perfectly settled in his immigrant community on a typical French housing estate.  To him there is no better place on Earth than this down-at-heel neighbourhood where crime in rampant and car-burning is an essential rite of passage.  It is easy to imagine Sami's distress when he is suddenly plucked out of this urban paradise and parachuted into the more genteel environs of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the more salubrious districts of Paris.  Now Sami must live with his Aunt Djamila and her rich husband Stanislas de Chazelle, a man who is proud of his noble ancestry.  Sami's new home is a palace compared with his last gaff, but unfortunately he has to share it with his cousin Charles.  The latter has the same age as Sami but already he is looking like a future leader of the National Front.

An out-and-out racist, Charles cannot conceal his ambition to become President of France, and if he had his way, no doubt, Sami and others like him would be deported back to where they came from.  When he is not being harassed by his madly xenophobic cousin, Sami must endure the humiliation of having his manners polished by his upper-crust guardians.  Then there is the ordeal of his new school, a private college attended by the neighbourhood's more privileged youngsters.  Just when things couldn't get any worse, Sami falls in love with one of his classmates, the lovely Marie.  Suddenly, he has just the incentive he needs to change his ways.  But can a leopard change its spots so readily...?