Samba (2014) Directors: Olivier Nakache & Éric Toledano Watched: 7/29/18 Rating: 6/10 Yes, Samba Like the dance. Funny/heartfelt, Einaudi's aurally awing soundtrack Mitigates poorly paced/unfocused plot. Gainsborough/Sy Are au fait Actors, But Not Very Convincing As two lovers. Compelling illegal immigrant woes, Sincere until deus ex machina. Priceless last scene Will make you Cheer or Dance! Tetractys poems stem from the mathematician Euclid, who considered the number series 1, 2, 3, 4 to have a mystical significance because of its sum of 10. He named it a Tetractys. Thus, these poems follow a 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 syllable format, with additional verses written in an inverted syllable count. #Tetractys #QuadrupleTetractys #PoemReview #French #Immigrants #Soundtrack

I enjoyed every minute of the movie!At the same time Samba is so entertaining and comical with lots of great scenes, but also educative and touching. It shows real European attitude towards immigrants. I have to highlight actors. Both Omar Sy and Charlotte Gainsbourg are so believable. My favorite character is definitely Wilson, brilliantly played by Tahar Rahim. So lovable character. The soundtrack is also brilliant. I recommend Samba to all who wants good, entertaining comedy with unusual love story. This movie is so different from classical Hollywood romantic comedy and that's why I prefer European and non-Hollywood comedies.

This film could have been a lot better. It dragged in places - 2 hours long!!! 90 minutes would have been sufficient.The major problem is Charlotte Gainsbourg. I'd like to like her, given her parents, but she seems to have only two expressions: sulky, bored face and wan smile. She doesn't seem to be capable of emotions. She whispers most of her words.In a lot of the scenes with her and Omar Sy the characters didn't say much. Sort of along the lines of: *cough* "Did you say something?" "No. No, I didn't say anything." "Oh, you see I thought you had said something." "No, not me." "Oh, I thought you had." In places like this, the film drags.Fortunately, there are plenty of laughs along the way.However.. as is often the case with French comedies, there are sad bits, too. What is shocking is to see how the 'sans-papiers', those without the necessary papers, actually live. It's a dangerous and precarious life, never knowing where your next bit of paid, but illegal, work is coming from. I know it's a film and so not a real-life documentary, but it does make you think. It's sobering.Even a funny character like Wilson makes you realise just how hard the life of an illegal immigrant is. He's generally a happy-go-lucky character, but you can see how desperate he is to keep his charade going. Poor guy.Or take the scenes where the women in the immigration centre are trying to help all the immigrants. They are funny scenes, but you realise what a hard task they have.I'd watch the film again - but it could have been a lot better with a tighter script and a different female lead.

If this was the first I watched from Toledano/Nakache starring Omar Sy, I would say it has its moments but mostly displays immature story-writing/story-telling skills. Now this comes after the tremendously successful Intouchables, and I am left wondering what went wrong.Samba is another adaptation, but unlike Intouchables you don't have powerful core dynamics. Samba is a nice boy, Alice is a nice girl and both are just thrown in the middle of a distressing world that is too harsh on them. They try to cope with it but they are basically passive characters so it really gets boring as the story piles up scenes that just drag along these fatalistic souls. No matter how gentle and touching they are: we get this point pretty early on.Maybe Toledano/Nakache fell in love with the book Samba is based on and of course nobody would challenge them after Intouchables. This is what plagues talent most: self-doubt and sycophants. Apparently working as a team didn't preclude them from getting over with the Intouchables hangover (I guess they have families and couldn't step aside from the madness).Samba is hardly an interesting story. The ordeal of undocumented aliens was surely a very interesting idea as a background for a real story, with characters that actually try and choose to change their lives. Unfortunately in Samba there is only this interesting background with gentle passive characters barely afloat.