Neuilly sa mère !
Encyclopedia
Neuilly sa mère ! is a 2009 French
comedy film directed by Gabriel Julien-Laferrière. It stars Samy Seghir
as a beur
teenager who moves from the housing projects to the upscale neighborhood of Neuilly-sur-Seine
. Because of its use of social inequality as a comedic device, it has been compared to the 1988 French comedy Life is a Long Quiet River
(La vie est un long fleuve tranquille).
A word-for-word translation of the film's title is "Neuilly her mother!". The title is a play on the vulgar French insult nique ta mère ("Screw your mother"), in which Neuilly effectively serves as a euphemism.
(a French person of North African descent) living in Chalon-sur-Saône
, a relatively poor city in the Burgundy region. When his widowed mother (Farida Khelfa) takes a job working on a boat, she sends Sami to live with her sister Djamila (Rachida Brakni
), who is married to Frenchman Stanislas de Chazelle (Denis Podalydès
). They live in the upscale neighborhood of Neuilly-sur-Seine
, an affluent suburb of Paris
, with Stanislas' two children from his prior marriage: Charles (Jérémy Denisty), who aspires to be a politician someday, and Caroline (Chloé Coulloud). At first Charles resents Sami's presence in his house, but they gradually become friends. Sami enrolls in classes at Saint-Exupéry, a private school there.
Sami is made fun of by many of his classmates at school, particularly Guilain Lambert (Mathieu Spinosi). He impresses the blonde violinist Marie (Joséphine Japy), however, with his tender side: during a music class one of the pieces moves him to tears by making him think of his friends back in Chalon. He and Marie become friends. Guilain, who also has his eye on Marie, gets revenge by tricking Sami into eating pork (which Sami cannot eat, as it is haraam
), and Sami retaliates by beating up Guilain. Marie chides Sami, saying she will not tolerate violent boys, but they soon make up. Later, though, when Guilain and Charles end up running against one another in the class elections, Guilain hires a local thug Malik (Booder) to mug Sami and Charles. They manage to escape from Malik and his thugs, but Malik gives Sami a black eye in the process; when Marie sees the black eye, she becomes angry with Sami, thinking he got in a fight again.
Sami and Charles decide to throw a party in their house, to try to win votes for Charles. Marie comes to the party and has forgiven Sami, but before they can talk Malik and his friends show up to trash the house. Some friends Sami invited from Chalon (Shaiko Dieng and Pierre Louis Bellet), however, soon arrive, and with their help the partygoers give Malik a beating and chase him and his thugs away. Malik finds Guilain and, thinking Guilain set him up, gives him a beating that sends him to the emergency room. Guilain and his mother encounter Sami's aunt Djamila and uncle Stanislas at the hospital, and tell them that the beating was Sami's fault. Djamila, enraged, returns home and tells Sami she is sending him back to his mother.
Marie finds Malik and pays him to tell the school headmistress (Josiane Balasko) that he is responsible for Guilain's beating; he tells the story to the headmistress and Djamila the next day, and Sami is forgiven. Charles wins the election with the help of a well-written letter to the class, and goes on to meet all of Sami's friends back in Chalon, urging them to remember his name and vote for him in the future. Sami stays in Neuilly-sur-Seine, and begins a romantic relationship with Marie.
based on user ratings, but received generally negative reviews. Cyril Perraudat, reviewing for cinema-france.com, gives the film a score of 5 out of 10, calling it "a pile of cliché
s" ("un tas de clichés") and saying it will not be remembered ("ne restera pas dans les mémoires"), although he praises Seghir's acting in the role of Sami. Cine'Magic, in that blog's review, states that the film, while "not terrible" ("le résultat n’est pas terrible"), is boring and too "déjà-vu". Marwan Chahine of Libération
magazine, on the other hand, praised the film's political jokes and allusions to political personalities.
Cinema of France
The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...
comedy film directed by Gabriel Julien-Laferrière. It stars Samy Seghir
Samy seghir
Samy Seghir, born 29 July 1994 in Aubervilliers, is a French actor.- Biography :From an Algerian family, Samy began his career in 2006, when his mother replied to an advertisement of a local newspaper, Aubermensuel. He participated in the audition for...
as a beur
Beur
Beur is a colloquial term to designate French-born people whose parents are immigrants from North Africa. The word was coined by reversing the syllables of the word arabe, which means Arabic or Arab in French. For example, "arabe" becomes "a-ra-beu" then "beu-ra-a" and "beur" by contraction. The...
teenager who moves from the housing projects to the upscale neighborhood of Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...
. Because of its use of social inequality as a comedic device, it has been compared to the 1988 French comedy Life is a Long Quiet River
Life is a long quiet river
Life Is a Long Quiet River is a French comedy by Étienne Chatiliez of 1988.- Plot :In a maternity clinic two children from families with completely different social backgrounds are switched at birth. One goes on to live in an upper middle class family while the other to a poor family...
(La vie est un long fleuve tranquille).
A word-for-word translation of the film's title is "Neuilly her mother!". The title is a play on the vulgar French insult nique ta mère ("Screw your mother"), in which Neuilly effectively serves as a euphemism.
Plot
Fourteen-year-old Sami (Samy Seghir) is a beurBeur
Beur is a colloquial term to designate French-born people whose parents are immigrants from North Africa. The word was coined by reversing the syllables of the word arabe, which means Arabic or Arab in French. For example, "arabe" becomes "a-ra-beu" then "beu-ra-a" and "beur" by contraction. The...
(a French person of North African descent) living in Chalon-sur-Saône
Chalon-sur-Saône
Chalon-sur-Saône is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France.It is a sub-prefecture of the department. It is the largest city in the department; however, the department capital is the smaller city of Mâcon....
, a relatively poor city in the Burgundy region. When his widowed mother (Farida Khelfa) takes a job working on a boat, she sends Sami to live with her sister Djamila (Rachida Brakni
Rachida Brakni
Rachida Brakni is a French actress of Algerian origin. She is married to the football hero turned film actor Eric Cantona, whom she met on the filmset of Outremangeur in 2002....
), who is married to Frenchman Stanislas de Chazelle (Denis Podalydès
Denis Podalydès
Denis Podalydès is a French actor, director and scriptwriter of Greek descent. He is a Sociétaire of the Comédie-Française....
). They live in the upscale neighborhood of Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...
, an affluent suburb of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, with Stanislas' two children from his prior marriage: Charles (Jérémy Denisty), who aspires to be a politician someday, and Caroline (Chloé Coulloud). At first Charles resents Sami's presence in his house, but they gradually become friends. Sami enrolls in classes at Saint-Exupéry, a private school there.
Sami is made fun of by many of his classmates at school, particularly Guilain Lambert (Mathieu Spinosi). He impresses the blonde violinist Marie (Joséphine Japy), however, with his tender side: during a music class one of the pieces moves him to tears by making him think of his friends back in Chalon. He and Marie become friends. Guilain, who also has his eye on Marie, gets revenge by tricking Sami into eating pork (which Sami cannot eat, as it is haraam
Haraam
Haraam is an Arabic term meaning "forbidden", or "sacred". In Islam it is used to refer to anything that is prohibited by the word of Allah in the Qur'an or the Hadith Qudsi. Haraam is the highest status of prohibition given to anything that would result in sin when a Muslim commits it...
), and Sami retaliates by beating up Guilain. Marie chides Sami, saying she will not tolerate violent boys, but they soon make up. Later, though, when Guilain and Charles end up running against one another in the class elections, Guilain hires a local thug Malik (Booder) to mug Sami and Charles. They manage to escape from Malik and his thugs, but Malik gives Sami a black eye in the process; when Marie sees the black eye, she becomes angry with Sami, thinking he got in a fight again.
Sami and Charles decide to throw a party in their house, to try to win votes for Charles. Marie comes to the party and has forgiven Sami, but before they can talk Malik and his friends show up to trash the house. Some friends Sami invited from Chalon (Shaiko Dieng and Pierre Louis Bellet), however, soon arrive, and with their help the partygoers give Malik a beating and chase him and his thugs away. Malik finds Guilain and, thinking Guilain set him up, gives him a beating that sends him to the emergency room. Guilain and his mother encounter Sami's aunt Djamila and uncle Stanislas at the hospital, and tell them that the beating was Sami's fault. Djamila, enraged, returns home and tells Sami she is sending him back to his mother.
Marie finds Malik and pays him to tell the school headmistress (Josiane Balasko) that he is responsible for Guilain's beating; he tells the story to the headmistress and Djamila the next day, and Sami is forgiven. Charles wins the election with the help of a well-written letter to the class, and goes on to meet all of Sami's friends back in Chalon, urging them to remember his name and vote for him in the future. Sami stays in Neuilly-sur-Seine, and begins a romantic relationship with Marie.
Cast
- Samy SeghirSamy seghirSamy Seghir, born 29 July 1994 in Aubervilliers, is a French actor.- Biography :From an Algerian family, Samy began his career in 2006, when his mother replied to an advertisement of a local newspaper, Aubermensuel. He participated in the audition for...
: Sami Benboudaoud - Rachida BrakniRachida BrakniRachida Brakni is a French actress of Algerian origin. She is married to the football hero turned film actor Eric Cantona, whom she met on the filmset of Outremangeur in 2002....
: Djamila, Sami's aunt - Denis PodalydèsDenis PodalydèsDenis Podalydès is a French actor, director and scriptwriter of Greek descent. He is a Sociétaire of the Comédie-Française....
: Stanislas de Chazelle, Djamila's husband, owner of a pork company - Jérémy Denisty: Charles de Chazelle, Sami's cousin (Stanislas' son)
- Chloé Coulloud: Caroline, Sami's cousin (Stanislas' daughter)
- Joséphine Japy: Marie, a girl at Saint-Exupéry school, and Sami's love interest
- Mathieu Spinosi: Guilain Lambert, a student at Saint-Exupéry, Sami's rival
- Farida Khelfa: Nadia, Sami's mother
- Ramzy BediaRamzy BediaRamzy Bedia is a French actor of Algerian descent.After attending a business school, and working at a GAP Store. He started his career as a comedian in 1994 after meeting Eric Judor with whom he forms the duet Eric et Ramzy...
: Aziz, Sami's deceased father and Zinedine ZidaneZinedine ZidaneZinedine Yazid Zidane is a retired French footballer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. Zidane was a leading figure of a generation of French players that won the 1998 World Cup and 2000 European Championship...
fan - Shaiko Dieng: Mam, Sami's friend in his home neighborhood of Chalon-sur-SaôneChalon-sur-SaôneChalon-sur-Saône is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France.It is a sub-prefecture of the department. It is the largest city in the department; however, the department capital is the smaller city of Mâcon....
- Pierre Louis Bellet: Jason, Sami's friend back home
- Anne Duverneuil: Sophie Bourgeois, a student at Saint-Exupéry who helps Sami adjust
- Josiane BalaskoJosiane BalaskoJosiane Balasko is a French actress, writer and director.She was born Josiane Balašković in Paris. One of Balasko's most recognized roles among English speakers is as a lesbian in 1995's Gazon maudit...
: the director of Saint-Exupéry - Armelle: Mme Blanchet, history and geography teacher at Saint-Exupéry
- Olivier Baroux: M Boulegue, math teacher at Saint-Exupéry
- Booder: Abdelmalik ("Malik"), the boss of a street gang in the Picasso de Nanterre neighborhood
Reception
The film holds an 86% rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
based on user ratings, but received generally negative reviews. Cyril Perraudat, reviewing for cinema-france.com, gives the film a score of 5 out of 10, calling it "a pile of cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
s" ("un tas de clichés") and saying it will not be remembered ("ne restera pas dans les mémoires"), although he praises Seghir's acting in the role of Sami. Cine'Magic, in that blog's review, states that the film, while "not terrible" ("le résultat n’est pas terrible"), is boring and too "déjà-vu". Marwan Chahine of Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
magazine, on the other hand, praised the film's political jokes and allusions to political personalities.