Intouchables

Already break­ing box office records as the sec­ond high­est gross­ing non-English lan­guage film ever (behind The Pas­sion of the Christ), Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s Intouch­ables has become a world­wide sen­sa­tion. Nom­i­nated for nine César Awards (France’s equiv­a­lent to the Acad­emy Awards), and win­ning Best Actor for Omar Sy — beat­ing The Artist’s Jean Dujardin — Intouch­ables tells the story of the improb­a­ble friend­ship between Philippe (François Cluzet, Lit­tle White Lies, Tell No One) a wealthy quad­ri­plegic, and Driss (Sy, Mic­macs), a young offender of Sene­galese descent, who is hired as his live-in caregiver.

A wid­ower, Philippe lives with his teenage daugh­ter in a lux­u­ri­ous Paris apart­ment. When a paraglid­ing acci­dent leaves him par­a­lyzed from the neck down, Philippe requires a care­giver to assist him with his daily phys­i­cal needs. With the help of his assis­tant Mag­a­lie (Audrey Fleu­rot, The Women on the Sixth Floor) he inter­views a num­ber of highly qual­i­fied can­di­dates, all of whom he sub­se­quently rejects in favour of Driss, a recently released ex-con who has only applied for the job to ensure he keeps get­ting wel­fare pay­ments. Charmed by Driss’s brash self-confidence and some­times bru­tal straight­for­ward­ness, the jaded Philippe finds the young man’s lack of pity pre­cisely what he wants in a care­giver. Thus begins an unlikely pair­ing, one of which will change both their lives in a remark­able ways. Pro­pelled by Sy’s charis­matic per­for­mance, Intouch­ables is well-executed and thor­oughly enjoy­able culture-clash com­edy about a friend­ship that tran­scends the social and eco­nomic divide. Based on a true story, writer-directors Nakache and Toledano add just enough real-life seri­ous­ness to anchor their nar­ra­tive, but this sim­ple yet ele­gant film never loses its sense of humour.

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