Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
Precious
Theatre
Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
Waiting for Godot
Theatre
Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high
Enron
Utterly, utterly brilliant. You really are in for a treat
Though 'Trilogy' has won rave reviews, I personally found myself exasperated after about an hour
We went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiance
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Abdellatif Kechiche.
Cast: Habib Boufares, Hatika Karaoui, Bouraouia Marzouk
Description: In the French port town of Sete, the large Arab workforce struggles to cling onto its identity and traditions while bringing up its children with western ideals. Sixty-something shipyard worker Slimane loses his job after many years of loyal service and turns his attentions to the pipe dream of opening a restaurant aboard a boat. To launch the venture, he intends to host a large meal cooked by his estranged wife Souad, whose speciality is a fish couscous. Slimane's lover, hotelier Latifa, is ill at ease about the plans to work closely with Souad but she is comforted to know that her spirited, teenage daughter Rym is helping to co-ordinate festivities.
Country: FR. 2007. 154mins
Grain of truth: would-be restaurateur Slimane (Habib Boufares) and family in a movie with universal significance
It's long and often slow but Abdellatif Kechiche's great film, almost drowned by awards, is worth it. The central character is a working-class hero called Slimane (Habib Boufares), a 60-year-old North African shipyard worker who, having been made redundant, decides against all odds to open a couscous restaurant on an old disused ship in the harbour at Sète, on France's Mediterranean coast.
Originally called The Grain and the Mullet (the ingredients of fish couscous), the drama centres not just on this difficult project but on Slimane's extended family. Some urge him on and some doubt him, and most of the women are much stronger than the men.
They are a second-generation North African family, including indigenous French members, and the film is principally about the social and cultural complexities they face. It is almost like a novel, delighting in long, descriptive, documentary-type takes.
This is a risky business and doesn't always work, but Couscous remains a triumphant portrait of ordinary people living economically disadvantaged lives yet somehow making the best of it.
There are two extended central scenes. One is a Sunday lunch with Slimane's ex-wife and most of the family. The other, at the end of the film, is the almost disastrous dinner thrown by Slimane to convince the authorities to support his restaurant at which his new partner's daughter (the superb Hafsia Herzi) tries to distract the guests with a belly dance when the food mysteriously goes missing.
This is an extraordinary mosaic of a certain aspect of French life - which probably mirrors part of British life, too. What happens to this Franco-Arabic family has both a particular and a universal significance. And it is put on the screen with care, humanity and a total lack of forced sentimentality.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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A good film was spoiled by a bad ending where Slimane collapses after chasing some boys who stole his motorbike. Surely it would be better to give a positive image about someone trying to make something of his life. At least show the ambulance arriving. Would have been nice if his wife had found him, instead of passing a few yards away and not seeing him. And what a sad thought that after all the complex stories in the film we are left thinking of these silly boys instead of the rest of the story, which could have sent a positive image of the immigrant community, instead of the fatalistic idea of "ain". The film was a bit too long and the end could have been more ingenious. A shame though I agree there was some very strong performances, especially Hafsia Herzi.
- Carmela, London
Morning:
3°c
