'Samba' a sincere, endearing immigration drama
Mini-review: 'Samba'
Immigration issues may be hot-button topics in the U.S., but they approach meltdown levels in France, the setting of this sincere and well-acted romance-tinged immigration drama that takes the long road around Hollywood clichés.
For 10 years, a Senegalese immigrant named Samba (appealingly vulnerable French actor Omar Sy, seen briefly as Barry, an employee of “Jurassic World”) has labored in French restaurants while hoping to one day earn his chef's apron.
Just as he appears to be doing well, immigration authorities serve Samba with orders to go back home. Samba seeks help from an immigration advocacy center where he meets Alice (“Nymphomaniac” star Charlotte Gainsbourg, appearing uncharacteristically dowdy), a corporate burnout now working as a volunteer to help people like Samba remain in France.
The writing-directing team of Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache (they gave us the 2012 international hit “The Intouchables”) bends way over backward to avoid narrative shortcuts. The slow-building romance between Alice and Samba is emotionally earned, not given, in a boldly sentimental drama designed to humanize the soft-spoken, industrious immigrant and prompt us (perhaps especially the French) to empathize with his plight.
“Samba” comes populated with endearing supporting characters, among them the good-hearted Marcelle (Hélène Vincent), naive Maggy (Jacqueline Jehanneuf), Brazilian bud Wilson (Tahar Rahim) and terse law student Manu (Izïa Higelin), They fill out the world of the French immigrant, a place where hopes and dreams of the desperate coexist with the constant fear of bureaucratic intervention.
“Samba” opens at the Century Centre Cinemas, Chicago. Rated R for language. 106 minutes. ★ ★ ★