A rich quadriplegic, living in a mansion in Paris, requires a live-in carer. A young offender turns up for an interview, but he is not really looking to get the job. However, to his surprise, he is hired. The two men then develop a close friendship.
Saw this last night, a fantastic movie. It treads the line between being funny, sentimental, philosophical and, for want of a better expression "heart warming", very well, without slipping into any mawkish sentimentality or cliché. The Paris and alpine scenery are to die for. It oozes French style and sexiness*, it is artistically wonderful.
As it's a French film it is subtitled, but this has never been a distraction for me.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Upon the film's 21 September 2012 UK release under the title Untouchable, The Independent called it a "a third-rate buddy movie that hardly understands its own condescension....Why has the world flipped for this movie? Maybe it's the fantasy it spins on racial/social/cultural mores, much as Driving Miss Daisy did 20-odd years ago – uptight rich white employer learns to love through black employee's life-force. That was set in the segregationist America of the 1940s. What's this film's excuse?"
Robbie Collin of The Telegraph called it "as broad, accessible and trombonishly unsubtle as a subtitled Driving Miss Daisy"; according to Collin, the "characters are conduits for charisma rather than great dramatic roles, but the horseplay between Sy and Cluzet is often very funny, and one joke bounces merrily into the next."
Nigel Farndale, also of The Telegraph, said: "The film, which is about to be released in Britain, has been breaking box-office records in France and Germany, and one of the reasons seems to be that it gives the audience permission to laugh with, not at, disabled people, and see their lives as they have never seen them before."
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
Geez, why is it that almost always it's a black actor who portrays the young, and troubled, con man, ne'er–do–well, on a path of redemption... or destruction? Of course, not having seen this movie I can only speculate on its merit. But it appears to have been done before, in fact, many times before.
“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.”
It's been done many times before, but this time done very well. As I said; "It treads the line between being funny, sentimental, philosophical and, for want of a better expression "heart warming", very well, without slipping into any mawkish sentimentality or cliché. The Paris and alpine scenery are to die for. It oozes French style and sexiness*, it is artistically wonderful."
“Nothing stopped this guy. I knew he wouldn’t flinch and could take the initiative.” He had interviewed about 90 people and knew as soon as he met Abdel that: “This is the guy I need. I don’t give a damn that he is out of jail. I needed him. And he became a friend afterwards.” As well as sharing a sense of humour, they were both on the margins of society – a disabled man and a criminal. That, he thinks, explains why they came to depend on each other, enrich each other’s lives and bridge the race and class divide.
Philippe, who speaks fluent English, is profound on the subject of pity.
“He treated me like I neededed to be treated in the tough times ahead, partly because of my condition but also because my wife was dying of cancer [she died three years after his accident]. I needed to be back on track. Pity is the last thing you need. Pity is hopeless. Pity is what someone gives you because he is afraid to take care of you. I didn’t need that. But compassion I don’t need also. It comes from Latin and means ‘suffering with’. I don’t want you to be suffering with me. I need consolation, which in Latin means keeping me as a whole person, respecting me as I am.”
The movie reflects this well.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
The movie opens with a car chase, which is reprised later on. A fucking good'n too!
Also some shit hot paragliding scenes.
Is there a scene you envision before you even start a film and what was it for The Intouchables?
Olivier: The first scene, the car chase.
Eric: We wrote the first scene before the script, before everything. The cops stop them, do we know that Philippe's disability is true, have they stolen something, are they drug dealers? We still don't know who they are...
Olivier: And the Opera scene too. And at the gallery, "no handy, no candy."
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
