Chouchou (2003)
Directed by Merzak Allouache

Film Review

Actor and comedian Gad Elmaleh confirms himself as one of France's leading performers in this outrageous, high-energy comic farce.  The film is based on a one-man show which the Moroccan born actor wrote and acted on stage, re-worked by writer-director Merzak Allouache.  Part fairy tale, part fantasy, part love story, part thriller, Chouchou is a film that defies classification.  Perhaps the best way to describe it is an outlandish farce intended to showcase the unexpected talent of its lead actor.  And what a talent.

Gad Elmaleh is a charismatic young actor who has come to prominence in French cinema over the past decade, appearing in supporting roles in popular comedies, notably La vérité si je mens 2.  Over this period, he has acquired a cult following and has shown his versatility in a diverse range of comic and serious dramatic roles.  Chouchou is (and is likely to remain for some time) his pièce de résistance, a role to which he brings not just an extraordinary comic flair but also great humanity and affection.  Think what you may of the film,  but you cannot help falling for the charms of its principal character as portrayed by Gad Elmaleh.

Elmaleh's presence in the film is so strong that you scarcely notice his extraordinary supporting cast.  The participation of stars such as Catherine Frot, Claude Brasseur, Alain Chabat and Micheline Presle is almost superfluous, although such high class "window dressing" does give the film more bite than it would otherwise have had.  The only supporting actor to come anywhere near to sharing Elmaleh's limelight is the excellent Roschdy Zem who, bespectacled and decked out in sandals and short trousers, is - oddly - far less recognisable than the cross-dressing Elmaleh.  Although Zem's character in the film is frankly ridiculous - a drug-taking priest who is visited by ghostly hallucinations of the Virgin Mary - his dialogue with Elmaleh is one of the most endearing aspects of the films.

The least that is said about the plot the better.  Things start out reasonably well with Chouchou's arrival in Paris and his settling into his new lifestyle.  Then, around the film's mid-point, it all goes slightly off the rails and ends up something of a confused mess.  The sub-plot of Chouchou and the mad, bad and distinctly sad police inspector comes close to ruining the film and can only be justified by the fact that it give the film its funniest moment (Chouchou catapulted head-first through a car wash).  The sequences with Alain Chabat are also mildly ridiculous and feel painfully stereotyped.   A more cynical reviewer would summarise the film as: boy meets boy and they live happily every after.  Such a plot is the kind of sentimental drivel which has become de rigueur on the other side of the Atlantic (excluding those "films" which are 99% computer generated shite) but which is mercifully rare in French cinema.  Fortunately, the film's unconventional set up (which, to its credit, celebrates the glorious multi-cultural, multi-racial and multi-sexual nature of our society à la folie) manages to counter the natural urge to reach out for the sick bucket.

For all its sins - and it does commit a fair number - Chouchou is a film which it is genuinely hard to dislike.  Despite the abundant clichés, absurd plot and ending so cheesy that you can smell the Camembert from a mile, it is made with such fun and sincerity that you cannot help laughing out loud at the innumerable scripted jokes and comic situations.  Thanks to Gad Elmaleh's Hell for leather contribution - which certainly merits the César the actor was nominated for but failed to get - Chouchou is very likely to end up a cult classic of French cinema.  It's not a masterpiece, but it is a very funny film.

Film Synopsis

Chouchou is a young North African who arrives illegally in Paris with the intention of looking for his nephew.  The kindly parish priest Father Léon helps him to find a place to live and a job as a housecleaner for Dr Nicole Milovavovich, a psychiatrist.   One evening, Choucou begins his search for his nephew and finds him performing a transvestite act at a nightclub.  This inspires Chouchou to begin dressing up in women's clothing in his free time, and he gets himself a job 'serving' customers in the same nightclub.  This is how he comes to meet Stanislas de la Tour-Maubourg, a good-looking forty-something with whom he falls instantly in love.  Chouchou's idyllic romance is then threatened by one of Dr Milovavitch's patients - a nasty police inspector named Grégoire who knows him to be an illegal immigrant...