While The Intouchables and 84 Charing Cross Road have the closer connection, being that they are both based on true stories, all three focus squarely and strongly on two main characters, with other actors filling in the background of their lives, doing very well in small roles and giving them as much depth as the main characters in less time. The only exception would be Michelle Pfeiffer as Susie Diamond, who, in The Fabulous Baker Boys, is hired by brothers and pianists Frank (Beau Bridges) and Jack Baker (Jeff Bridges) to be the singer in their act. She’s just as forceful as the duo, while the outskirts are populated by Jennifer Tilly as Monica Horan who gives an utterly amusing audition for the brothers, and then becomes one of the haunting denizens of Seattle at the end, and Nina (Ellie Raab), Jack’s upstairs kid neighbor. 84 Charing Cross Road, on the other hand, gives us script reader, writer and passionate reader Helene Hanff’s (Anne Bancroft) theater actress friend Maxine (Jean De Baer), along with her upstairs neighbors, Kay (Mercedes Ruehl) and Brian (Daniel Gerroll), while in England, bookseller Frank (Anthony Hopkins) has the 84 Charing Cross Road staff (Eleanor David, Wendy Morgan, Maurice Denham, and Ian McNeice) and his wife, Nora (Judi Dench).
Again, 84 Charing Cross Road has the closer connection to The Intouchables in another way. Whereas The Fabulous Baker Boys is a little bit rougher toward the end because of Jack’s long-simmering frustration at still being one half of a piano act for pay and not being able to branch out yet on his own into jazz, 84 Charing Cross Road is gentle throughout in the correspondence between Helene and Frank in their mutual love of books.
The Intouchables begins with a later moment in the story, but then segues into wealthy quadriplegic Philippe (François Cluzet), who needs another caregiver. Driss (Omar Sy), who recently served six months for robbery, sits impatiently among the other applicants in what serves as a waiting room in Philippe’s sizable mansion. He’s only there to get a paper signed that indicates he applied for a job, but there was no interest, so he can get his benefits from the Paris Benefit Office. But Philippe sees something more in him, strength to lift him into his wheelchair, to dress him, to bathe him, and to show him no pity. As he says to his extremely skeptical and cynical lawyer (or at least he looks like a lawyer), that’s what he wants. No pity. He is still human, still a man, and he doesn’t want to be defined by being paralyzed from his neck to his toes and by his wheelchair. Driss can provide that, though at first, he only comes back for the signed benefit paper.
The life of the mansion is also filled by Magalie (Audrey Fleurot), Philippe’s assistant whose only tasks seem to be interviewing prospective caregivers, taking dictation for Philippe’s six-month-long correspondence with a woman, and fending off Driss’s advances, Yvonne (Anne Le Ny), the housekeeper, and Marcelle (Clotilde Mollet), Philippe’s impetuous adoptive teenage daughter.
On the other side, Driss has his mother, Fatou (Salimata Kamate), who kicks him out of the house. But he keeps tabs on what’s going on there, aware that his young sibling, Adama (Cyril Mendy) is working with a drug dealer, and his other sibling, Mina (Absa Diatou Toure), can’t help but worry about everything that’s going on in their apartment. We learn all of this in passing, in small moments. The real focus is on the growing relationship between Philippe and Driss, the unbreakable trust that builds between them, the moments such as that restaurant at four in the morning after Philippe can’t breathe and needs some air, in which the reason for Philippe’s paralysis is slipped in so quietly, so subtly, that you might very well miss it, and then realize it, and then rewind to catch it, like I did. It’s part of the infinite charm of The Intouchables, besides its impish sense of humor, that it never makes a big fuss about itself. Writer/directors Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache are well aware of the story they have here, and that less is much more, to make the comedic moments a delight every time, to make us feel closer to Philippe and Driss. They succeed admirably.
Even before we get back to that later moment in the story where it actually happened, and where it’s handled with such elegance after focusing on the speeding-car aspect of it (the first movie in what must be a very long time in which the reason for the speeding car is not because it’s being chased, at least at first), a viewer’s heart is filled with such certainty of the beautiful visuals (courtesy of cinematographer Mathieu Vadepeid), which, along with Philippe and Driss, gives The Intouchables a beautiful heart and a beautiful soul. It doesn’t take long to grow on you, and when Philippe and Driss first come together, you’re in for good. You can’t escape. Its charm has got you and it’s not going to let go. If you’ve seen Amelie, and you recall being sucked into it so quickly, a smile plastered on your face the entire time, that’s what The Intouchables does, too. You smile during The Intouchables, but it’s also mixed with genuine concern for Philippe and Driss in the hardest moments. It’s an intricate ballet that seems so easy to do, and yet great chemistry in a movie is rare. This one has it in spades.
You feel such an enduring connection to The Intouchables that it’s easy to see why the five deleted scenes on the DVD weren’t used. For example, “I Know Sarkozy” wasn’t used because by this point in the movie, Driss knows well enough that Philippe can’t use any part of his body, not even his hands. “Want to Split the Tip?” would have only padded the movie, despite being funny, and yet, it also seems unnecessarily cruel. Yes, Philippe’s lawyer is suspicious of Driss, but we need no more than that from him, no other insight into his personality. We only need that one scene, and to see him at Philippe’s birthday party, to understand that he’s in Philippe’s inner circle, and that’s enough.
“Explaining Art” adds nothing, while “Driss’s Brother Visits” engages in a brief cruelty that Driss doesn’t have. He may have had it when he served time for robbery, but that is not him now. And “Driss Buys a Bathtub” is merely an extraneous scene, since Driss’s family doesn’t appear again until much later, too late for a bathtub.
While I had been psyched to see The Intouchables after watching the trailer well over 40 times (not always in a row), I was especially excited that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment was releasing it on DVD and Blu-ray, because I love the sheer number of trailers they provide for other movies. Here, we have Robot & Frank, Playing for Keeps, A Dark Truth, Silver Linings Playbook, The Artist, and Now Is Good, the latter of which reminded me of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, but is based on an earlier novel called Before I Die by Jenny Downham, another instance in which I want to read the novel and then see the movie, not least because Dakota Fanning, whose best performance was in the final story of Rodrigo Garcia’s Nine Lives, looks like she’s capable of other great performances as she gets older.
Go and get The Intouchables any way you can. Right now would be good. Why are you waiting? If you love being utterly charmed by a movie, what’s the holdup? I’ll stop here so you can get to it.
