You’ve likely heard of Omar Sy as the star of the Netflix series Lupin, and I just wrote a post about a recent submarine film he appears in, Le Chant du loup. But the film that really jump-started Sy’s career was Intouchables (2011), a blockbuster odd-couple story about Philippe (played by François Cluzet), a wheelchair-bound invalid , and Driss (played by Omar Sy), the home health-aid he hires for round-the-clock care and companionship. The two men come from different worlds. Philippe is an enormously wealthy, cultured, white, fifty-year-old Parisian who lost the use of all four limbs in a paragliding accident and then lost his wife to illness. Driss is a twenty-something jewel thief recently released from prison, Black, broke and living in the housing projects of the banlieue. He has no qualifications to be an aid, but shows up to interview for the post in order to satisfy some requirement to qualify for unemployment benefits. Philippe refuses to sign the relevant form (noting ironically his paralysis) but instead hires Driss for the job.
Philippe obviously likes Driss’s bluster, broad smile, and joie-de-vivre, but he later explains to a concerned brother that the main reason he hired Driss is that there was no pity in his gaze when he looks at Philippe. Driss doesn’t treat him like a fragile thing, a freak, or a benefactor to be indulged. Tending Philippe is just a gig that eventually becomes hanging out with a friend and pushing that friend back into the world. Philippe in turn has a chance to educate Driss and introduce him to music, art and literature. I can imagine a story like this falling flat, but this instance manages to avoid obvious tropes, is well paced, has funny dialog, and evolves multiple times to remain fresh.
Still, the film only succeeds because of Omar Sy’s exuberant performance of Driss. And succeed it has: it was the top film at the French box office for 10 weeks in a row in 2011, had an international release in 50 countries, and eventually grossed $440 million in theaters (annoyingly, there are no French closed-captions available in the Netflix version, and you can’t de-activate the English sub-titles. I had to block the bottom third of my screen to avoid being distracted). Its production budget was only $10 million, so it was a financial home run. Maybe that’s how the movie industry operates: they can’t differentiate in advance a film that will barely break even like Le Chant du loup from a film that will pay for itself dozens of time over like Intouchables. Funny business.
One last note about the title, «Intouchables». The word has two surface meanings, but I think there is a third irony hiding just beneath. The literal meaning of the adjective is “that which should not be touched.” You could imagine this applying to something fragile, possibly Philippe, or to something dangerous or odious, like Driss. The second meaning is “someone who is out of the reach of the law, who cannot be sanctioned.” This meaning is apparent in the opening scene of the film: Driss is driving a fancy sports car at night through the streets of Paris, speeding and ignoring traffic signs, while Philippe is in the passenger seat grinning madly with the thrill. When the cops eventually stop him, Driss asserts that his patient is having a seizure and needs to get to the hospital urgently. The cops are unconvinced, but between Philippe’s acting and the wheel chair in the trunk, they agree to escort them to the hospital. Uncomfortable, the police drive off once they’ve arrived, at which point our heroes laugh and drive off themselves. With a handicap like this (and a billion dollars in the bank), you can get away with anything!
But the third meaning is (only slightly) subtler. Driss only showed up and applied for the job because he needed to go through the motions in order to collect unemployment. The French phrase for this is «toucher des indemnités chômage», as «toucher» can mean “to collect”, “to draw” (e.g. a salary), or “to receive” (e.g. a stipend). So by hiring Driss instead of validating his form, Philippe prevented him from collecting unemployment funds, thus rendering them «intouchable». The first two meanings come across in the English title (“The Intouchables”), but the financial meaning likely does not.
See? Totally worth studying a foreign language to pick up on small details like that.
