Mismatched buddy pairings don’t get much better than the Intouchables. I’ll admit, part of me went into this movie hoping to see some foreign version of the Untouchables, the Al Capone gangster movie. What I got was entirely the opposite: a loving, platonic, very funny relationship between two men. The Intouchables is a much better title anyways, because the central relationship touched me a great deal.
To receive benefits from the government, Driss (Omar Sy) has to interview for a position as a caretaker for Philippe (Francois Cluzet), a well-to-do art proprietor who is paralyzed from the waste down. Both characters have suspect pasts: Driss has an abnormal family dynamic, and Philippe has issues with his wife and daughter. By learning from each other, they confront their pasts and grow as people. Driss becomes more responsible, and Philippe becomes more independent.
Like a rom-com or any good buddy movie, the relationship and chemistry between the two leads can either elevate or cripple the story. From the first scene, Omar Sy and Francois Cluzet establish their paradoxical chemistry. Sy provides the necessary energy, naivete, and charisma for Driss, which plays off reaction shots from Cluzet. Cluzet has a difficult role here: he must only use his face to convey his emotions, and in that regard his role, though less flashy, is much more nuanced and complicated than other movie characters in similar predicaments. You can see in his face that although he really appreciates living vicariously through Driss, he longs to leap out of his chair and participate. Such depth can only be seen through a seasoned actor, and Cluzet is up to the task.
Wow was this script funny. I laughed aloud several times. The comedy is naturally grown from the characters and their unusual relationship, whether it be Driss learning how little Philippe can feel pain, or how haircuts can be exploited. The light script helps lessen the blow of some of the dramatic reveals, and keeps the story progressing at a jovial pace.
The biggest failing of the story is the subplots. It feels as though the writers felt they needed more material here, and added several standard subplots, some of which work, but most of which do not. Philippe’s romantic interest is handled well, but his relationship with his daughter and should have been either cut, or expanded. Driss’s family life definitely needed more screen time to provide more context to some of his motivations. The subplots help add more depth to a character, and in this case, they felt like devices used to move the story along. The other workers for Philippe were also fairly hollow types with the exception of one of the older nurses (played by Anne Le Ny).
These are minor distractions though. The central relationship is so rewarding that it’s hard to refrain from smiling watching the two leads play off each other. In a summer where American Reunion and That’s My Boy pass for American “comedies,” it was the Intouchables, a French movie, that truly made me laugh and smile. Perhaps American comedies could use the Intouchables je ne sais quoi.