Samba

A French romantic comedy about immigration? Seeing Samba in election week may not be on Nigel Farage’s to-do list, but that should not deter anyone else. Based on a novel by Delphine Coulin, this is an affectionate and touching look at the absurdities of life as an illegal, and at its heart are two charming performances.

A splendid tracking shot which opens the film moves through a blingy hotel from the choreographed celebrations of a very white wedding through to the crowded chaos of the multi-ethnic kitchen. In a minute directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano have deftly ferried us into the world of the invisible Parisian underclass. 

Samba (Omar Sy), whose name keeps changing whenever he needs a new ID, has been working in Paris for a decade, but is facing extradition back to Senegal. His case handler Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is a nervous sociopath working pro bono after suspension from her proper job following a violent meltdown.

In another telling, the tale of an illegal immigrant on the run in the big city might seek to tear at your heartstrings, but Samba declares itself as a comedy the second Alice’s brassy colleague Manu (Izïa Higelin, pictured) sets off a metal detector with a pair of piercings below the midriff. The script, by Delphine and Muriel Coulin with additional dialogue by the directors, even has a soft spot for mordant farce. “To leave France I go that way?” Samba screams when denied the right to remain and released from detention facility next to the airport. He pals up with Walid aka Wilson (Tahar Rahim), an Algerian masquerading as a Brazilian (to have more success with the ladies), who does the erotic dance from the Coke ad as they dangle from a wobbly window-cleaning gantry halfway up a high rise office block. Later they flee the police by comically hot-footing it shoelessly over Paris’s rooftops.

At the heart of the film is a tentative romance between Samba and Alice, who spend much of their joint screen time shyly misconnecting. Alice, the film quietly suggests, is as much a prisoner of a stratified society which requires her to don a business suit adn conform. She even uses the word "slave". The result is addiction to sleeping pills and wide-eyed diffidence. With silent moues, Gainsbourg delightfully captures the air of a wounded animal seeking to back away from the headlights, apart from one memorable public explosion. As Samba, Omar Sy suggests a coy and vulnerable heart inside a burly frame.

As a love story the film doesn’t have quite enough va-va-voom, while the enigmatic ending feels like a misstep. But Samba is worth celebrating for its amicable and inquisitive visit to an underworld which, in most French films, would be grimly tooled up with guns and knives.

Overleaf: watch the trailer to Samba