Critic Reviews

Samba finds a much stronger rhythm when it stops contriving and simply shines a light on the joy and pain (and musical interludes) of lives lived in the margins.

With the tender love story, charming comedy and underlying point of shared humanity all getting equal standing, directors Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache earn the benefit of the doubt. You won’t be bored.

Gainsbourg is always going through a little more than she cares to tell the audience about, but the connection her character makes with Samba — real, complicated and not typical — is one of the movie’s highlights.

Running a full reel longer than needed, the film’s balance of romance, humor and pathos starts to slip in the final stretch... though the emotional notes ring true.

Most elements of Samba sound mockable, and are. Yet it does have oodles of charm, plus a cast of characters that feels like an impromptu family circle.

Even as Samba struggles to hold onto his identity, the film becomes entangled in an identity crisis of its own.

An actor has to just have it and Omar Sy has it. One needs only to watch his performance in Samba to see Sy's old-school natural star power in its purest form.

Unfortunately, the material flounders from the broadly farcical to the bombastically melodramatic. Race and ethnicity aren’t so much the problem as gender is. Despite Gainsbourg’s efforts, her character becomes a caricature.

Sy is such an attentive listener in close-up that you instantly grasp the frazzled Alice’s attraction; if she’s less well defined, Gainsbourg’s nervy intelligence and clenched-jaw resistance to sentimentality hold the interest nevertheless.

Both actors are tremendous. Sy adds powerful dramatic shading to his usual irresistible charm, while Gainsbourg hints at a sunnier disposition beneath her volatile nervousness.