Samba

When writer/director duo Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano turned the real-life tale of a wealthy quadriplegic and his poverty-stricken caregiver into The Intouchables, their successes were many. They crafted a feel-good portrait of an odd-couple friendship overcoming cultural clashes, unearthed a charismatic new star in Omar Sy, and unleashed one of the biggest French hits in years. With their follow-up, Samba, the pair tries to repeat the same feat. It is a considerable task, as is overcoming the air of familiarity. 

Samba opens with the glitz and glamour of a restaurant full of revelry; however its real point of focus lingers in the kitchen behind the scenes. The titular dishwasher (Sy, X-Men: Days of Future Past) migrated to Paris ten years prior, working in hospitality to send money back home to his family in Senegal, but has yet to make his residency official. His attempts stall through a mix-up of mail, misunderstandings and bureaucracy. After Samba is sent to a detention centre and then ordered to leave France, his hopes to remain in the country rest upon Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg, 3 Hearts), a volunteer immigration caseworker endeavouring to do the right thing but plagued by her own demons. 

As filmmakers, Nakache and Toledano ooze empathy for the tales they tell and for characters who transcend dramatic situations coloured with convenience. Their features are as open with their hearts as they are with their eyes, asking audiences to relate to protagonists not commonly seen on screen, and to contemplate issues lightened for laughs but still bursting with societal relevance. Penning the script with 17 Girls‘ duo Muriel Coulin and Delphine Coulin, the latter also writing the book Samba pour la France upon which Samba is based, they continually demonstrate skill in weaving together the lives of disparate figures, and in doing so with a balance of drama and comedy. What the frequent collaborators lack, however, is subtlety and unpredictability. 

From the outset, Samba‘s path is clear, as is the purpose of everyone in the film’s orbit. Playing somewhat against type as a tightly wound introvert, Gainsbourg helps the story stray into romantic territory, while the similarly atypical use of Tahar Rahim (The Past) as a work buddy in an equally tenuous predicament ushers in the comic – and sometimes slapstick – contingent. And yet, knowing where everything is headed doesn’t dampen the feature’s gentle impact. Indeed, whilst Nakache and Toledano stick with what now constitutes their formula, including comforting narrative turns, finding hilarity in unlikely pairings, and relying upon the affection cultivated by the cast, they ensure Samba continues to charm beyond the material’s already-acquainted feeling.

Of course, given the movie’s central trio, overflowing with appeal is perhaps easier to achieve. Sy proves as endearing as ever, Gainsbourg is at her understated best, and Rahim shows a gift for humour, with Samba’s best scenes featuring all three. Though the film is shot with warmth by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine (Rust and Bone) and brightened by the strong use of music by Ludovico Einaudi (The Intouchables), it belongs to its stars. Such effective turns help the feature transcend even the most manufactured of scenarios, each enlivening characters that could have remained stereotypes in other hands, but are here depicted with enduring sincerity over sentimentality.

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

Samba

Director: Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano
France, 2014, 120 mins

Release date: April 2
Distributor: Transmission Films
Rated: M

Alliance Française French Film Festival
http://www.affrenchfilmfestival.org/films.aspx

Sydney: 3 – 22 March

Melbourne: 4 – 22 March

Adelaide: 5 – 24 March

Canberra: 6 – 25 March

Brisbane: 13 March – 1 April

Perth: 19 March – 7 April

Byron Bay: 9 – 14 April

Hobart: 16 – 21 April