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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

The Intouchables

That was a clip from ‘The Intouchables’, the award-winning French film that has been a sensation in Europe and has finally arrived in the US. Based on a true story, the film stars Omar Sy as Driss, a tough, blunt young Senegalese man with a criminal past who reluctantly takes a job as a caregiver to a wealthy quadriplegic man named Philippe (played by Francois Cluzet). Despite their differences, Driss and Philippe forge an unlikely friendship, with Driss helping Philippe to loosen up, embrace life, and take chances. At the same time, Driss is introduced to a world and culture beyond the Paris projects where he grew up as he realizes that he has potential greater than hanging out, smoking weed, and getting in trouble.

Now I imagine that a lot of you are rolling your eyes at this premise, and for good reason. That’s because there have been so many movies with stories that sound similar to this that they’ve spawned not one, but two genres: the Magic Negro movie and the White Savior movie, which both say a lot about race in America.

Magic Negro movies — such as ‘The Green Mile’, ‘Driving Miss Daisy’, and ‘The Legend of Baggar Vance’ — are ones where a saintly black person devotes him/herself to helping a white person in need by dispensing profound wisdom that’s either folksy or street-smart or, in some cases, by using magic powers. White Savior films — like ‘Dangerous Minds’, ‘The Blind Side’, or ‘The Help’ — are ones where a saintly white person arrives to save brown people in need, often from themselves and their lack of education and self esteem.

While films of the Magic Negro and White Savior genres are often corny and saccharine at best or condescending and racist at worst, they technically come from a good place. Magic Negro films seem to come from filmmakers who want desperately to show how much they like black people, yet they know so few actual black people that they end up creating idealized, unrealistic, unrelatable caricatures. White Savior films are also meant to show how much the (probably white) filmmakers like brown people by showing how much they want to help them, but this often makes it seem that what brown people really need to improve their lives is for the right compassionate white person to do it for them.

So does ‘The Intouchables’ fall into one of these unfortunate genres? Thankfully, it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s because France, which was a haven for African Americans sick of the Jim Crow laws and discrimination they faced in the US, doesn’t have the same recent history of racism to atone for. Maybe it’s because the differences between Philippe and Driss have much more to do with class, background, and age than they do race, especially when you consider that the caregiver Driss is based on, Abdel Sellou, is of Algerian descent and is light-skinned.

But I think the main reason is that Philippe and Driss are fully-realized three dimensional characters wonderfully inhabited by Cluzet and Sy, who were both nominated for the best actor award at France’s equivalent of the Oscars, with Sy taking home the win. Both men have their strengths, weaknesses, and perspectives formed by their experiences, playing both student and teacher to each other as this odd couple finds — through a lot of laughter, honesty, and tenderness — how well they complement and expand the world for each other. Unlike characters in Magic Negro and White Savior films, neither Driss nor Philippe are out to save anyone, but realize that their unlikely friendship has unexpectedly helped them save themselves.

However, there’s rumor of an American remake of ‘The Intouchables’ in the works. So my recommendation is that you check out this wonderful film now in case the remake, with piles of our country’s racial baggage in tow, ends up being the kind of Magic Negro or White Savior film that you should rightfully avoid.

‘The Intouchables’ is rated R and is in select theaters.