When you’re trying to endear an audience, soundtracks and montages can detract, not enhance, from the audience’s relationship to the characters on screen, as is the case in The Intouchables, by French writer-director duo Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, and based on a true story. Driss (Omar Sy), a Senegalese man from the projects, is the unlikely caregiver for Philippe (Francois Cluzot), a rich Parisian quadriplegic. They’re an odd couple: Philippe enjoys Driss’s lack of pity and gauche sense of humour, and Driss opens up to a life completely foreign to his—Sy and Cluzot are funny, but the storyline is overall too schmaltzy. We get a bit of insight into how outsiders view Driss and Philippe, and we’re also privy to some of Driss’s complicated family life, but don’t expect significant insight into Parisian socio-economic class or racism.
