Diana Carroll is an arts writer and reviewer - READ MORE HERE




FILM: The Intouchables

DIANA CARROLL - Reviewer
INDAILY - 24.10.12

FRANCOIS Cluzet and Omar Sy star in this remarkably satisfying French film. Cluzet plays Phillipe, a fabulously wealthy Parisian whose glamorous life was curtailed when he suffered a devastating spinal injury in a paragliding accident. The death of his adored wife shattered his emotional life with equal force. Sy plays Driss, an unemployed African immigrant from a long way over the wrong side of the tracks. Life throws these two together and so begins a relationship of unexpected warmth when Driss takes on the job of carer to the wheelchair-bound Phillipe. His down-to-earth manner offers a refreshing change from the professional sympathy Phillipe finds so stultifying in others.

Superficially, this is a fish-out-of-water comedy that screams with a comedy-writer's handy juxtapositions: black and white, rich and poor, stuffy and funky, sexy and sexless (or so it appears…). Even so, these would be forgiven thanks to the joy of seeing Cluzet and Sy on screen together. These are superbly nuanced performances that reveal each character's strengths and weaknesses with a delicate touch.

But, in fact, there is nothing to be forgiven because The Intouchables is based on a true story. Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, the privileged heir to a champagne empire, wrote a book about his life with a carer after becoming a quadriplegic, and from that came this production. Di Borgo has given the film his blessing and has said in interviews that his carer's real-life approach was more savage than what is shown on screen.

This is now the most commercially successful French film ever released in France, and it's not hard to see why. It is beautifully crafted, stylishly shot, and extremely funny. My reservations are minor – why release it with a half-French, half-English title? Why rewrite history so the carer is a black African and not an Arab? Presumably this was a cynical production decision to appease an anti-Arabic sentiment in US audiences. And why change some of the cultural references to Americana in the subtitling? Again, a little crass. But these are small concerns in a movie that is so warm and so satisfying.

The Intouchables is the French entry in the Foreign Film section of the Academy Awards to be announced in January; it may be hard to beat. And with 5 per cent of the take going to a French charity for the disabled, this really is a film with a heart.

ENDS.