It’s called Samba, but it’s not about Brazilian music. It’s co-directed by Nakache and Toledano, but it’s not a patch on their last movie, The Intouchables. It’s marketed as a rom-com, but whilst there’s plenty of rom, the com is barely evident.
Samba Cissé (Omar Sy) is a migrant determined to stay in France, with the help of troubled, rookie immigration officer, Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Based on Delphine Coulin’s novel, the film starts off at a wedding, juxtaposing the lives of the wealthy revellers with the lowly kitchen staff, working furiously behind the scenes to keep the food cooking and the cutlery clean.
Samba’s struggled for a decade to make ends meet, sending money home to his mum, and dreaming of returning to Senegal with his uncle one day to live “like kings”. But, arrested as an illegal immigrant, Samba faces deportation. Alice is assigned his case and, before you can say “But, Alice, your supervisor said never give clients your number”, she gives Samba her number…
Sy and Gainsbourg do their best with the material, their combined charisma carrying the slight plot, as their romance slowly (and I do mean s-l-o-w-l-y) blossoms. A bit of fun window-cleaning Parisian skyscrapers aside, it’s pretty light on laughs, but amiable enough fare. Not to give too much away, but Samba and Alice’s strategy relies on deception and underhanded means, so in the end the underlying moral seems to be that in a tough, uncaring, capitalist society, honesty and good intentions get you nowhere. C’est la vie, eh?
