Director: Amr Salama.
Cast: Kinda Alloush, Hani Adel, Ahmed Dash.
Running Time: 110 minutes
Synopsis: A Christian boy in Egypt is forced to swap his elite education for state school, where he is believed to be a Muslim.
When you consider that this is a film about a Christian boy with an atheist mother, living in Egypt, growing up with a love of western culture, having to pretend to Muslim, it seems apt that it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. It feels like a child orientated movie with adult themes (duality, religious guilt, even Seinfeld) and scenes of violence that may be a bit much for little ones. At the same time it seems like a film for an adult audience that just so happens to feature children, like STAND BY ME or the THE MONSTER SQUAD. Except not like them at all. But it’s just so childish and wilfully quirky that it gets right your nerves. All in all I’m not entirely sure what EXCUSE MY FRENCH is, other than well meaning and way too long. For an ostensibly light comedy, it feels very bloated and that 100 minutes running time is at least 20 too many.
This is by no means the fault of the performers, all of whom are very impressive. The star is, of course, Ahmed Dash as little Hany while Kinda Alloush provides the emotional core as his mum on her road to Damascus. The soundtrack is very charming and it looks lovely. Writer/director Amr Salama creates a clear visual juxtaposition between Hany’s colourful home and his beige, nightmarish school life. When break time is called and masses of children flood into the school yard, it resembles the prison riot scene from THE RAID 2. The introductory exposition has a Wes Anderson feel to it, which I’m sure will entice some and repel others.
There are comic flourishes and signs of invention but essentially, EXCUSE MY FRENCH doesn’t seem to know where it’s going and the journey isn’t particularly enjoyable. It’s possible that I’m not the target audience, but I wouldn’t know who is.
[usr=2] EXCUSE MY FRENCH is playing during the London Film Festival, tickets and dates are available here.
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