5 - 7

The French seem to have an expression or a saying for everything to do with having sexual relations especially, when it comes to extra-marital ones.  In their daily routines there is a hazy two-hour window when the husband has left work and is on his way home and so his whereabouts can only be guessed.  So this period from 5 pm to 7 pm is accepted in Parisian society as the time when mistresses can be met and liaisons kept and everyone is still home in time for dinner. 

The existence of this practice was unknown to Brian a 24 year old struggling American writer when he encountered Arielle a sophisticated French woman sneaking in a cigarette outside a chic Manhattan Hotel one Friday afternoon.  The two of them have an instant connection and she suggests that they meet up again the following week when she will be having her usual lunch date in the hotel. Arielle is older and wiser, and is also married and a mother of two, and when she reveals that fact to Brian he is rather devastated.   Arielle gives him the option of not even starting the affair they are obviously heading for, and he does in fact manage to miss a couple of cigarette smoking dates until the third week and then he caves in, and there is no looking back.

Arielle explains that her husband is  twenty years her senior and is a Diplomat at the French Consulate and he has a mistress called Jane and that everything is all open and above board with them.  In fact one day as Brian is walking down the street a chauffeured town car pulls up and the person insists that he gets in.  The passenger is Valery who introduces himself as Arielle's husband and he explains that he just wants to check out the man who is making his wife so happy, and ends up inviting Brian to join the family for dinner this coming weekend.

He does even more than that and makes a point of introducing Brian to the very starry other dinner guests who include the Editor of New Yorker who ends up promising to read some of his work.

However Brian's wealthy Jewish parents struggle to be quite so accepting of their only son's choice of girlfriend when they learn of her back story, but they come around to being their usual supportive selves because it is obvious that he is very happy.  So to is Arielle, and if that is not enough, Brian finally gets his first story published and life should be perfect.  The trouble is that it is not. Brian had accepted the 5 -7 system when he was talked in to at the beginning and he has kept to the 'rules' of the arrangement. Now however he realizes that Arielle is the love of his life and so he wants to marry her and even become a stepdad to the kids.  She feels exactly the same way, but she is part of a more traditional culture where one makes compromises in relationships.  Neither Brian or she knows if she can really accept his proposal.

There is a very definite old-fashioned vibe to this totally charming and easy-to-digest romantic comedy which is the first feature film directed by writer & producer Victor Levin. Arielle played by stunning beautiful ex Bond Girl Bérénice Marlohe is a little too young to be a Mrs Robinson figure to the eager and virgin-like Brian, but she is definitely the one who is leading this relationship. Clever casting as baby faced Anton Yelchin as Brian would not at first seem an obvious fit as a lover for this experienced worldly Frenchwoman, but there is such perfect chemistry between the two of them that helps make this movie so much more convincing.  As there is too between Brian's gently meddling parents so beautifully played by Glen Close and Frank Langella.  To round out the cast, Valery is played by handsome veteran French actor Lambert Wilson, and Olivia Thirlby plays Jane his mistress.

It's refreshing to see a 'mature' romance, albeit that the couple were not that old, and is probable the closest and best American take on a French 'boulevard comedy' in recent times.

★★★★★★★★

Love of My Lives aka Amor de Mis Amor

With just one week away before he gets married to his fiancee Lucía, Carlos jumps on a plane to Madrid to convince his best friend to come back with him to Mexico to attend the wedding. Javier has been ignoring all his phone calls and emails so Carlos is worried that something dreadful may have happened to him.  Lucía none to pleased to be left alone to do the final planning, leaves the airport somewhat distracted and manages to accidentally run a cyclist over in her car.  

León is not too hurt but he insists on being taken to the hospital but is more interested in flirting with Lucia than listening to the doctors diagnosis. She tries to get him to stop by telling him of her impending nuptials, but despite her protestations it's clear that she is quite taken by this charming handsome stranger.  However what León fails to mention that he too is due to get married to Ana , who just happens to also be in Madrid this week working at an Art Show.

When he follows up with a phone call to Lucia next day and asks her out on a date she hesitates but finally refuses.  However when he asks her point blank if she believes in love at first sight, he has located her Achilles heal, and she relents and agrees to have dinner with him. She subsequently has second and third thoughts about the situation so ends up standing León up, only to have a chance encounter the very next day and she is a goner.  So is he too.

They both feel that this could be the 'real thing' and so want to cancel their respective weddings even though they are now just a few days away .  Will they really be able to walk away from a past they were immensely happy in right up until they met or will they really want to swept away by this fresh new romance?

This rather charming and very-easy-on-the-eye Latino romantic comedy complete with it's overlapping plot lines and none to subtle plot, is very engaging. All the very talented lead actors are as attractive as hell and its obviously that none of their characters are ever destined to end up single and sad.  High production values make this a cut above the rest in this genre,  and ensure that it is a perfect date movie for any hopeless romantic.

★★★★★★

Sleeping With Other People

Jake first meets Lainey when she is raising hell trying to break a door down in the hallway of his college dorm.  She's trying to get to Matthew who she has a big crush on, but before she can get her hands on him, she is about to be thrown out by College Security before Jake jumps in to rescue her by claiming that Lainey is a friend of his and that he'll take care of her.  He does in a way, as back in his room and the two of them start to bond, they discover that they do actually both have something in common.  They are both virgins, a situation that they rectify immediately on the spot.

Fast forward 12 years and Jake has just manipulated his latest girlfriend into dumping as he just can never ever be monogamous as she wants, whilst on the other side of town, Lainey is confessing to her boyfriend that she has been regularly sleeping with someone else. It leads to an accidental reunion when they both end up at sex-addicts meeting. It's the first time the pair have met since Lainey walked out after their one night together , and this time they enter a pact to remain friends, but purely platonic ones.

Turns out that the man that Lainey has been having an affair with is the same one that she had the crush on back in college, and as torturous as it is for her, she just cannot bring herself to end it.  Jake on the other hand has issues with his infidelity which he now shares with Lainey as the two become besties. The pair become so very close and share everything including all the trials and tribulations of their latest dates that, but it never occurs to either them to get romantic with each other.  They have to go through hell and back, as hilarious as it is, until  they can possibly reach the point we all know that they were always going to end up at.

Writer/director Leslye Headland ('Bacherlorette') brisk-paced comedy amongst Manhattan's fast set, attempts to tackle the perennial old question 'can a single man and a single woman just be friends'. However although she doesn't further the argument one way or another, she does get as many laughs that she can out of it in this very cute and raunchy rom-com.  Never one to shirk from getting amusement from their misery, there are some real gems of stand-out funny scenes such as Jake breaking up with his girlfriend who is determined to break all his bones at the same time, and when Lainey is trying to break up with her boyfriend he just insists on stealing the scene from her.

Pitch perfect casting led by Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie as two would be/could be lovers, but also with some great supporting performances too from Amanda Peet, Adam Scott and Natasha Lyonne.

'Sleeping With Other People' is both much more good natured and definitely more sophisticated than Headland's smash hit 'Bachelorette', and all more better because of it.

★★★★★★★

The Wolfpack

This is such an unlikely story of seven siblings who were raised in the heart of New York’s Lower East Side by a tyrannical father and subservient mother who only allowed them to venture outside the front door of their apartment once or twice a year throughout their childhood, that it at first seems like that it could not possibly be true. It is however very much the stuff that movies are made off, and part of the extraordinary drama of these ‘imprisoned’ young brothers (and one almost silent sister) is that their reality is based on re-enacting in precise detail all their favorite movies that for some inexplicable reason they have been allowed to watch on their battered old television.  Most of them are violent and pure escapism, and the fact Tarantino’s ‘Reservoir Dogs’ tops the list, speaks volumes.

Filmed by first time director Crystal Moselle over 5 years and incorporating some archival homemade footage it witnesses the children getting home schooled and obediently accepting their parents reasoning for keeping them so isolated from the world outside that they often look and stare at from the windows of their high rise apartment.  Oscar their Peruvian father, a Hare Krishna devotee, had met their American free-spirited mother on a hippy trail in Manchu Picchu and had subsequently given all the children Hindu diety names.  Rarely seen on camera until the end of the film he doesn’t believe in the whole concept of working for a living but would have been happy becoming a rock star.  Ruling the family mainly through terror and fear from behind a closed door he considers himself almost god-like and is unchallenged until the boys start to act defiantly like the young men they become.

All the boys, very good-looking with their waist length hair, are happy enough to articulate their feelings which develop as they grow and although they remain a tight knit group that still derive so much pleasure for their intense play-acting which one senses is the reason they remain so sane.  When one of the actually dares to venture outside on his own when he turns 15 year old is dressed up as Batman, he is picked up by the Police and lands in a Mental Institution for a short while.

Director Moselle never offers any explanation at any level and at any time and lets the family talk for itself.  They are mainly so guarded in what they reveal that even through they are extremely coherent, so much of their intriguing story is subsequently left to supposition.  There is so much unanswered including the very crucial question as to why/how this very secretive family ever permitted a stranger in their midst to document their life in this manner.

The fact that the brothers are immensely likable and have such a passion for everything they turn their hands too, and even when they finally realize what a despot their father is, their devotion to their mother never wavers one iota, contributes to make this such a compelling viewing.  Watching them journey from oppression to freedom is unquestionable uplifting but it does beg the need for Moselle to go back to see how they all fare, as by the end we are all so committed to their futures too.

★★★★★★★★★

Some Kind Of Beautiful

There seems to be a tradition that when actors retire from being James Bond on the silver screen they still continue to play super-smooth devilishly handsome rogues who, although they may now be silver haired, they can still have younger beauties tripping over themselves to get into their beds and their hearts.

Irishman Pierce Brosnan who stopped his stint as 007 in 2004 is the latest ex Bond to still be playing the leading man in this new romantic comedy even though he is now 62 years, and at an age when most actresses are resigned to simply playing grandmothers. He plays Richard Haigh a Cambridge University Professor who is following in the footsteps of his father who had also taught Literature there and dated his students too. Richard has been dating Kate an American student of his for six months now when she announces that she is pregnant. She actually just suddenly blurts it out when, unbeknown to her, Richard had only just been hitting on Olivia her older (and more age appropriate) sister.

Kate has now graduated and been offered a good job in California and her wealthy father buys the couple a rather spectacular house with a pool, so Richard finds himself giving up his prestigious job and moving across the Pond to become a husband and father and teaching at a depressing urban community college. Turns out the only bright spot of all of this is his son Jake as Richard, wary of how his own childhood was so unhappy, is a very good father . Meanwhile Kate soon realizes that she is over her 'father' fixation and trades Richard in for a much younger man although she does allow him to still live on in their guest bungalow so that he can continue to help bring up Jake.

Older sister Olivia turns up somewhat distraught as she has walked out on her marriage after she had caught her husband in flagenti with her gynecologist. With two newly single adults who once almost stole a kiss together now living in close quarters, the ending to this story is now looking easy to predict. There is just the matter of the fact that Richard had been ignoring all the correspondence from the INS regarding an application he had filed for a Green Card some years ago, but now he has decided he wants to definitely. However after he mixed his meds with his drink and gets a conviction for DUI, this is suddenly looking like something he hasn't a remote chance of getting. So things have to get worse before they can better, and they do as even though this is for once a rare mature romantic comedy, you do not have to be that old (or that bright) not to have worked this one out.

This pleasantly entertaining romp has a really old fashioned feeling to it as if it was a 'women's picture' from the 1940's. It was obviously written as a vehicle for Brosnan who effortlessly just charms himself through it all without ever breaking into a sweat. He has a great supporting cast in Salma Hayek, Jessica Alba, Ben Mckenzie and a white haired Malcolm McDowell who plays his screen father even though he is actually only 10 years older than Brosnan.

'Some Kind of Beautiful' is easy on the eye and on the emotions and makes a perfect date movie, even more so if you are not in the first blush of youth yourself.

★★★★★★

6 Years

Twenty-year-old Dan and Mel have been dating for six years now and although they are constantly declaring their love to each other, it is clear that the magic is definitely rubbing off their romance. After she staggers home late and drunk one night, Mel picks a fight with Dan which ends up with him in the Hospital's Emergency Room getting a head wound sorted out.  Next day a sober Mel is distraught and apologetic but she has obviously hurt a great deal more then her boyfriend's skull this time.

They are both finishing up at College and Dan is already working part-time as an Intern at a record company and is hoping that they will actually offer him a job soon.  Mel wants to be a schoolteacher so their plan is that when Dan graduates they will stay on in Texas whilst she takes a final course at school to qualify. However whilst Mel is content to just hang out with her close-knit college gal pals as she has always done, Dan wants to branch out and start socialising with his new music business friends. When he eventually persuades Mel to go to a party to hang out with them she sulks off home after having just one drink leaving Dan on his own to deal with all the temptations of a summer pool party where the drink is flowing.  He cannot resist and ends up  somewhat impulsively kissing Amanda his pretty co-worker who has been flirting with him in the office for sometime now.

That's not a problem until Mel finds out and then another fight between the two of them ensues, but this time its out in public and results in the Police getting involved and hauling Dan off to spend a night in jail.  That certainly cools his ardor down for Mel, and it looks like a temporary break from each other that he now insists on, could possibly become permanent.  Whilst he is pondering this all he actually gets his job offer and it is even better than he had expected or hoped for.  There is however one small snag, it would mean that he would need to move across country to Brooklyn.  Its a move that his mother says that if he doesn't make, he will regret it all her life exactly as she had done with some of her own life choices.  Mel on the other hand will not even listen to Dan's ideas on how he could take the job and still make their relationship work albeit ling distance, as she screams out the same mantra that she seems permanently struck on these days of 'how could you do this too me?'  

It is really the question that poor Dan should ask as after yet another fight he ends up in the hospital again with a very bloodied injury, much to the resigned face of the Emergency Room nurse.  We sort of feel the same too by now.

It's a straightforward enough story and makes far more sense than writer/director Hannah Fidell's rather annoying previous film 'A Teacher,' but why she chose to make it quite so melodramatic is still quite a mystery. The two leads are admirably played by Taissa Farmiga (actor/director Vera's younger sister) and Ben Rosenfield but the script simply does not allow us to empathize with them much at all, especially as it is inevitable from a very early point in the movie how it is all going to end. The 'journey' to this point is a tad long and fails to really completely engage the audience.

It had been produced by the talented Duplass Brothers and no doubt their fans will want to see this one but they maybe a little  disappointed : it is certainly not one of their best.

★★★★★

Peace After Marriage

Arafat is a 30 year-old struggling actor who is still living at home in Brooklyn with his conservative Arab parents. They are determined for him to get married but he is just desperate to get laid. They drag him around to all their Palestinian friends who are trying to palm their singularly unattractive daughters off in a traditional marriage, whilst he just wants to stay in his room and beat off to his massive collection of porn. They even drag him back to Palestine to see if they can fix him up with a local girl, but Arafat still wants to hold out until he can find his own love match.

Meanwhile he knows that he has to get his porn obsession under control so he joins a Sexual Compulsive Support Group where Kenny is assigned as his 'mentor'. Kenny doesn't actually seem to have many bright ideas but he does make a suggestion as to how Arafat can neatly solve nearly all his problems in one go.  As he is an American citizen there are women who would pay him to get married and as they would have to live together to convince the INS, he would not only could get to move out of his parents apartment, but his 'bride' would probably put out too. Arafat agrees to the idea and when he sees how pretty his future 'wife' he thinks he has struck gold except for one rather major obstacle. Michaela is not only Jewish but is Israeli which 'makes her extra Jewish' he claims.  She is also not to keen to be having a Palestinian Arab as her husband but as her boyfriend is refusing to step up the plate she has little choice if she wants to remain living in the US.

It's fairly obvious how this is going to pan out even after Arafat's family call on their Imam to help them stage an 'intervention' to rescue their son, but the 'journey' to it's inevitable ending is still very funny nevertheless with some good laugh-out-loud one liners.  It's all the work of a stand up comic Ghazi Albuliwi who is the movie's writer, director and star, and he performs all his roles extremely well in what is obviously a real labor of love. Albuliwi has occasionally been dubbed a Muslim Woody Allen and he certainly has a very quick wit and a natural talent for what is very much a New York story.

He has cast it well with the surprising (and very welcome) inclusion of talented Israeli actress Hiam Abbass, best known for her serious roles in movies such as 'The Visitor' and 'Lemon Tree' playing comedy for a change.

I guess the movie has even more resonance if you are either an Arab or an Israeli Jew (it had it's World Premiere in The Abu Dhabi Film Festival followed by a Screening in Jerusalem) and the very idea of a mixed marriage is not something you would not normally want to think about.  Even if you are not, then its a delightfully entertaining romantic comedy that will put a big smile on your face.

★★★★★★★

Mr. Holmes

It turns out that the deerstalker hat and pipe were fictitious embellishments that Dr. Watson added to his tales of the world's greatest detective, but it's all a little irrelevant as since he has long to get married and Sherlock Holmes is now in his dotage and retired to live in the peace and quiet of the English countryside. The year is 1947 and the 90 year-old has just returned from a trip to a devastated war-torn Japan in search of 'prickly ash' which he believes will help stall the onset of dementia.

Life should be idyllic for him in his rather grand isolated house overlooking the English Channel where all he has to do is look after his bees, whilst he in turn is looked after his war-widow Housekeeper and Roger her 11 year old son. Holmes is troubled as he desperately wants to try his own hand at writing about his very last case before he dies.  It happened some thirty years and his memory is fading fast and he has difficulty remembering vital parts of the mystery although he thinks it all ended badly enough to cause him to hastily retire.

Holmes and Roger bond, much to the dismay of his mother who doesn't want her son to get too attached as she thinks the job will be short lived due to the advanced age of her employer.  The old man however teaches the boy beekeeping and also shares with him pages of his new manuscript after he has managed to recall another part of his last case.  

The movie flits back and forth from London in the 1920's when Holmes had been commissioned by a distressed husband to track down his wife who he thinks is taking illicit music lessons.  It is naturally much more complicated than that and when the story flashes forward to the present time Holmes gradually remembers where the case went horribly wrong.

The 'case' itself and the real reason why he had recently gone to Japan are actually very lightweight plots, but that is hardly a hindrance for the movie which is essentially such to show us the great detective Holmes as portrayed by Ian McKellen one of the greatest British actors of his generation.  Two quintessential Englishmen : they are an ideal match. His Holmes is still shrewd and sharp (albeit a tad slow) but he is also very compassionate and emotional, which is a side we have never ever seen before. 

Sir Ian is, as always, totally pitch perfect, although it does take a minute or two to adjust to the flashbacks as he still looks pretty old, but this is a minor distraction to a wonderful period piece of the kind that the Brits still really excel at. Laura Linney has little to do as the unhappy Housekeeper, but the talented Hattie Morahan is very touching as the Wife that Holmes has to trace, and naturally teenager Milo Parker manages to steal several of his scenes as Roger.

The movie re-unites Sir Ian with director Bill Condon who won an Oscar the last time they worked together ('Gods and Monsters'). He and fellow Americans screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher working from the original novel by Mitch Cullin make the emphasis of the story much more about the man himself than the cases he solved and the people involved. It made for a really refreshing change to have some personal insight that his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would never ever have dreamed of back then over 100 years ago. By gad.... we Brits just wouldn't have talked about that sort of thing.

★★★★★★★★

THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL

‘I’ve just had sex!  Holy sh-t!’ is the very first thing we hear uttered from 15 year-old Minnie even before the opening credits roll.  She is not talking to us but to her cassette tape recorder into which she secretly records her innermost thoughts. Minnie backtracks to relive the past two days that led up to losing her virginity to Monroe her mother’s current boyfriend, who at aged 35 is 20 years older then Minnie.

He hadn’t been the instigator of her deflowering as Minnie had not only been a willing participant but she had all but thrown herself at this very laid back older man who just wasn’t going to turn down this golden opportunity.  It is the mid 1970’s and they live in San Francisco and life couldn’t possible have been anymore free-spirited. Minnie’s mother is probably not the best role model for a teenager daughter as she parties hard and somewhat indiscriminately with her pals, and hides little from Minnie or her younger sister.  Minnie apes her mother’s attitude to life and soon gets a taste and a liking for drugs and drink from her school chum Kimmie who has already gained quite the reputation for being generous with her sexual favors.

When Monroe is not immediately available to satisfy her increasing sexual appetite, then Minnie makes out with a boy her own age, but she is immediately disappointed with his inexperienced clumsy performance. She has better luck when she encounters a rather wild and streetwise lesbian called Tabatha. 

The only person who attempts to act like a parent to this adolescent who is suddenly growing up very fast, is their stepdad Pascal who now lives in NY. His claim to take control is based on the fact that he was the only boyfriend that their mother had actually bothered to marry. Now that they are divorced however, he’s rather jealous and upset that their lives have moved on without him.  Neither mother nor daughter welcome his attempts to get involved in their affairs.  

Monroe and Minnie’s relationship is like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.  Not only is there the real possibility that their secret will be discovered especially as they all live together at close quarters, but there is the whole question of Minnie’s maturity. She can handle the sex well enough and be physically satisfied, but on an emotional level, she has such innocent dreams and ideals of ‘true love’. Monroe the object of her affection on the other hand thinks the affair is no more than a pleasant and satisfying diversion which he knows he must put a stop too.

Based on the graphic novel of Phoebe Gloeckner, the movie is written and directed by actress/filmmaker Marielle Heller who skillfully ensures that the teenager’s affair is never sensationalized or feels even remotely immoral.  She imbues Minnie with the naturalness of a precocious child that on some level is mentally mature for her age and who innocently wants to enjoy her sexual awakening with an experienced lover who can fulfill all her desires.

Heller incorporates some clever animation with the live action which helps us see how Minnie’s over-active imagination works. The rest is left to the 23 year-old British actress Bel Powly with her big saucer-like eyes that Heller picked from near obscurity, and who so perfectly captures manipulative Minnie with such alarming perfection. It is a powerful performance and is a career-defining moment that marks the arrival of a major new star.  Her ‘Minnie’ beautifully molds with that of devilishly handsome Alexander Skarsgard as the easygoing and passive Monroe, and playing Minnie’s poor mother who never really grew up enough to parent children is the always wonderful Kristin Wiig.

The Diary of A Teenage Girl is a perfect record of a time of sexual revolution when being uninhibited was no longer a cause for moral indignation and will strike a chord with not just those that lived threw it, but also others who wished they had.

★★★★★★★★

PETER AND JOHN

Peter and John, a period costume drama set in Nantucket in I827, is loosely based on a novel by the 19th Century French author Guy de Maupassant. It’s an odd time in the island’s history as the Civil War has just ended and many of the residents are now struggling financially since the whaling industry has drastically declined. The two protagonists are brothers who have totally different natures: Peter is an Army veteran and a serious minded Doctor who is now heavily in debt as he insists on treating poor patients for free and meanwhile is also bailing out John his penniless work-shy sibling.

Their fortunes are about to change when the local Attorney turns up at the family house to announce that an old friend of their parents has died and left all of his considerable fortune to John. The reason forthe surprise legacy is a mystery to the family except for the mother who suddenly rushes out of the room having a set of vapors. It gives a really big clue to us to what is going down here, which is quite a relief because up until that point, thanks to a stilted and befuddled script, the plot was as clear as mud.  

The movie, full of the best intentions, is produced under a scheme run by Vermont’s Marlboro College with a partnership from non-profit film and arts company Kingdom County Productions, and deserves our unbridled support.  It combines the raw talents of the filmmaking graduates of the College, who obviously imbue the project with boundless enthusiasm and a great deal of talent, with that of seasoned professionals. The end result looks and sounds beautiful and for the most part, the production values are excellent. There is however a very big BUT that over-shadows all the earnest work of the students and stops it being the excellent showcase that it should have been by rights.

The script itself makes such very little sense at times as it flits from melodrama to petty drama with such howlers coming from the actors mouths that we end up laughing out loud albeit totally inappropriately.  It really is not helped in anyway that the movie contains some of the hammiest acting seen on the large screen for a very long time indeed.  The cast that includes Golden Globe actress Jacqueline Bissett may have several nominations for Emmys under their belt but they will probably want to completely miss this one off their resume. They give stiff wooden performances that just painfully dragged the whole movie out making it's 110 minutes running time seem even longer. They are not just bad, they are awful.  

It takes an enormous ego for one man to be writer/director/producer and co-editor and the downside to that is they lack a crucial independent voice to stand back from the mess and help sort the woods from the trees.  What Jay Craven has single-handedly created here is a veritable dense forest that needed to be hacked down, or at the very least, some very severe pruning. He is after all the College Professor for all the participating students and his over-riding motive should have been to insure that they ended up with a more watchable and creditable movie that accurately showcased the talents that he had helped them nurture. They are ill-served with mish-mash of a movie that Craven has turned it into and it will certainly not help further anyone's careers which seems to defeat its very purpose.

Peter and John Trailer 2015 from Jay Craven on Vimeo.

SAMBA

After the unprecedented success of ‘The Intouchables’ in 2011 which went on to become France’s second biggest grossing movie of all time, filmmaking duo Oliver Nakache and Eric Toledano reunite with their Cesar Winning actor Omar Sy for a new drama/rom-com about un-documented immigration which is a very thorny topic especially in France.

Sy plays Samba Cissé a migrant from Senegal to France, who had been working as a dish washer in a hotel in Paris for the past 10 years and who is going through the legal process of becoming a resident. However after a bureaucratic slip-up he lands up in a detention center where he meets Alice a rather meek charity worker who tries to help him with fight his impending deportation. To no avail however, and Samba is given official notice to leave France in the very near future.

Meanwhile, he tries to make the best life possible without ‘papers’ picking up casual laboring work whenever he can.  He also complicates his situation when he goes to fulfill a promise to another inmate still in detention to visit his girlfriend on the outside, and ends up having a one-night stand with her instead. Samba feels the need to share this information with Alice, totally unaware that she has ignored the golden rule of the Legal Aid Office about keeping her distance, and is in fact carrying a torch for the handsome Senegalese. She does at least confide with Samba that she has ‘issues’ that she has been dealing with in her own life that caused her to ‘burn out’ from her high profile management job where she was a complete workaholic until she just ‘lost it’ one day and was sent to an Clinic to recover.

Samba’s life seems to teeter from one disaster to another in this entertaining melodramatic plot, which does get unnecessary a trifle long-winded and complicated at times.  The action is given a comic twist by the presence of  his friend Wilson, a Moroccan illegal immigrant who masquerades as a Brazilian as this gets him more action with women, but it could still comfortably lose 30 minutes off its 119-minute running time. 

The success of the movie though is completely down to the magnetic performance of a rather wonderful Sy who shows once again what a truly dynamic actor he really is.  He’s aided and abetted by very understated Charlotte Gainsburg, in a role totally out of character for her, and giving one of the finest performances we have ever seen from her.  They are far from an obvious pairing and the subtlety of their chemistry makes for one of the most unpredictable enjoyable aspects of the movie.  So too is the fact that Toledano and Nakache at least avoided the obvious and just married the pair off to resolve Samba’s alien status

It’s definite a tough subject for a comedy in any culture, and the fact that they carry off so well is partly due to the fact that the filmmakers have avoided many of clichés/stereotypes and Samba is written as a compassionate and intelligent man with an un-dramatic history and very straightforward desires for his future that makes you want to will him to succeed.  Will he though?

This will by no means be the same runaway success of ‘The Intouchables’  but Omar Sy’s performance alone will make it a must-see movie to still make this a big hit this summer.

★★★★★★★★