The Intouchables, or: The danger in defining characters through class division

The Intouchables (2011)

Directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano

***SPOILERS***

The Intouchables is sort of, kind of—in case you haven’t already noticed—winning over everybody. Critics, audiences, your parents and grandparents—yep, everybody seems to be falling head over heels for the lovable, potty-mouthed, real-life duo of Philippe (François Cluzet) and Driss (Omar Sy). And the reason isn’t very hard to pinpoint: an endearing film full of nothing but good intentions, The Intouchables’ writers and directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano began their film with two disgruntled men looking for change, and gave them nothing but hope until the film climaxed with Driss finally setting Philippe up on a romantic date. Driss is what Philippe needed and Philippe is what Driss needed to escape a repressed life, and they each continuously improved one another’s lives until the closing credits rolled. Driss dances, curses, jokes about beating women, and gives Philippe a Hitleresque mustache, while Philippe relishes in it all, laughing alongside the audience. It’s all very infectious and enjoyable, but it also points out a difference in how characters are portrayed and how characters are treated. For as gratifying as it would be to reward Nakache and Toledano for their optimistic portrayal of two men improving one another’s lives, the manner in which the filmmakers establish their characters leaves a bittersweet taste in the end.

This is because the manner in which Driss and Philippe are established—and routinely defined by—are through their class ranks. Nakache and Toledano track several men’s shoes, awaiting their turns to walk into an office for an interview involving Philippe’s caretaking position. All of these shoes are proper and polished—until we reach Driss. His shoes—dirty, mangled, and clearly street-worn—immediately cast a grisly image of Driss. This image is promptly perpetuated by Philippe, who singles out Driss among the qualified nominees because he is not nurturing and casually insensitive like the others, but instead a hardened individual who will give Philippe exactly what he needs: “No pity.” And it’s all fine and dandy to utilize a nice bit of imagery to capture the aura surrounding a persona, but the manner in which class ranks are utilized from there on out would suggest such imagery captures Driss and Philippe’s actual personas. Because there is no honest attempt to explore these men’s individual lives, instead we’re left with clichés, stereotypes, and masculine jokes to both establish a genuine connection and their individual personalities.

The sole examination of Driss’ home life plays directly into this flaw. Driss comes home to an extremely small apartment housing far too many children. They run and scream and fight with reckless abandon, capturing a sense of frenzy that Driss is able to sustain. But the scene proves to be nothing more than class-division fodder, as the shot of Driss in a cramped and crowded bathroom is offset by Philippe’s gloriously golden bathroom, aptly greeted with a wide shot depicting its vastness and an angelic chorus. Instead of building any sense of Driss’ dire situation, his entire trip home is rendered humbly one-note. Such an image of Philippe’s overly large bathtub is meant to represent Driss’ ticket out of the ghetto, but it really carries no poignant implications without a true understanding of Driss’ dire situation. Nakache and Toledano gloss silently over Driss conversing with fellow street dwellers all looking for welfare checks, allowing the somber music (much like in the bathroom scene) to tell the story. Weapons are discovered in his luggage and he violently yanks a man from his car for parking improperly, and none of it is meant with any genuine concern or repercussions, but instead an aloof Philippe who finds it not only fitting to his confined situation, but also strangely charming.

Even more inept than the directors’ exploration of Driss is their exploration of Philippe, who seemingly has as much at stake as Driss and is equally converted through class differences, but only exists in scenes alongside Driss. Even the benignly bland treatment Driss receives seems academic compared to Philippe, who bolsters the class difference dynamic by guffawing at Driss’ unprofessional and eccentric methods of caretaking, all in an effort to prove “street smarts” are much more useful than “book smarts.” It makes Philippe bounded to Driss’ character, which might be peachy if the story was entirely focused on Driss, but the opening sequence featuring their twilight joyride suggests an established and textured bond. While there’s an effort to explore exactly why Driss requires a distinguished treatment to escape his melancholic home life, there’s no effort to balance with the suppression of Philippe’s exquisite lifestyle outside of Driss’ shenanigans, never allowing Philippe to become a character entirely on his own, but instead part of an endlessly watchable duo…

…which would be fine, except for the fact that their actual relationship suffers from the same blatant perception of class disparities that ultimately define them as characters. There are glimmers of hope shining through Nakache and Toledano’s misguided intentions, such as when Driss shaves Philippe’s facial hair into several goofy identities, from a leather chap-wearin’ biker to a certain suppressive, power-hungry dictator, or when Driss sleeps in Philippe’s armchair, fearful he will lose control of his breathing once again in the middle of the night. It’s these sort of lounges that capture a sense of their loving relationship, free from symmetrical pairings (the bathtubs) that assist class dynamics. But unfortunately, most of their scenes together depict the same class divisions that define them as characters. Driss continues his roughened street persona by offering Philippe a cigarette amidst a coughing fit, because, hey, “it can’t get worse.” And while Philippe relishes in his favorite concertos—intimately performed by a hired orchestra at his request—Driss interrupts any attempt to bask in the moment by loudly berating the performers, culminating in an abrupt and contagious dance sequence. The pure joy in his face as he rouses the surrounding partygoers does little more than prove Driss is full of life and rich snobs have sticks up their asses, all signified by how blatant and lightly brushed these characters introductions were. By pairing the differences in their relationship with and without each other through symmetrical contrasts and an individual gumption to find joy (as seen in the dance number), their pairing very much carries an extraneous, unnecessary weight that isn’t interested in forming one personality between these two characters, but one idea, rendering their relationship a one-note experience disguised by some nonchalant jokes objectifying women.

Not to suggest The Intouchables is irresponsible for its employment of offensive gender jokes, because even those moments mark a rather endearing portrayal of two men genuinely enjoying one another’s company and forming a friendship. But character syntax is everything in defining one’s character, and Nakache and Toledano chose to introduce their characters through class stereotypes, continue such clichés through their developments, and use such a technique to breathe life into their relationship. It marks a sense of hard-nosed relevancy in regards to their flaws—which is astute in theory—but the execution suggests “class warfare” was far too prevalent in Nakache and Toledano’s collective mind. Thus the final analyses of Driss and Philippe become not only deceptive, but also entirely offensive. Driss walks away from Philippe’s home and politely asks a man to move his car, marking a kindlier personality that was formed through an extravagant lifestyle that offset his street life. And Philippe only gained the initiative to advance his long-time muted relationship through the unpitying ghetto resident with a resolute personality. It’s too bad, because such moments are full of good intentions and may very well have been touching in other contexts, but because these characters are introduced and built through such class divisions, this final “touching” moment—and The Intouchables as a whole—becomes anything but.