Untouched by The Intouchables' simplistic approach

THE Intouchables has been a sensational box-office success in France and is slated for a Hollywood remake.

The Intouchables

THE Intouchables has been a sensational box-office success in France, is slated for a Hollywood remake, and will certainly be talked about among lovers of foreign language films in the weeks to come.

I wish I liked it more. It's based, loosely I presume, on real characters. Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is a millionaire who, as the result of a paragliding accident, has become a quadriplegic. To the dismay of his personal secretary, Magalie (Audrey Fleurot), and other members of his household, Philippe hires as his new carer Driss (Omar Sy), a Senegalese man just released from jail after serving six months for robbery.

The unconventional, non-PC Driss wastes no time in turning Philippe's constrained world upside down, getting him out into the fresh air and giving him a new lease of life.

This is potentially inspirational material, and many will see it that way. But the handling of it, by the writer-director team of Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, is resolutely unsubtle and at times borderline offensive in the depiction of a "lovable" black man.

The basic idea is somewhat similar to that of Driving Miss Daisy, but the director of that film, Bruce Beresford, never descended into the sort of banalities we find here. The film has a consistently low-brow approach to the arts: modern painting, classical music and opera are all mocked by Driss and the audience is invited to laugh along at these easy put-downs.

On the other hand, Cluzet and Sy both give fine performances and there are some impressive scenes in a film that, in the end, left me disturbed by its simplistic approach.

The Intouchables (M)
3 stars
Limited release