Level Two: English wide reading
Text title: The intouchables
Author/director: Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano
Text type: Novel
Date read: 24th May

The film “ The intouchables,” depicts the story of Philippe, a quadriplegic who suffered a tragic paragliding accident leaving him unable to look after himself and Driss, his carer. The text is based on the true story of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo and Abdel Sellou. Directed by, Olivier nakache and Eric Toledano, this is a gripping story full of playful comedy and serious global themes.

In this text, the two main characters, Philippe and Driss, couldn’t be more different, their backgrounds, ethnicities and behaviours contrasting one another. This is a story of friendship, and coming together despite social and ethical differences. Starting off as two men, with nothing in common and different goals in life, ending as lifelong friends.
The handful of themes shown in the text are social status, prejudice and a sense of responsibility. It aims to show how initial judgements can be wrong and how they can get in the way of making connections with people. 

This displays to me that in life situations it is easy assume you know what someone is like based on accusations or opinions formed without evidence. This is a problem rooted in many political or ethical conflicts, people assuming they know about a certain religion from how it has been portrayed in the media eg. all muslims are isis. Just an assumption backed by no evidence or truth.

This text connects to me in a sense that I, myself have judged people too quickly and been judged by others and its not a nice feeling. I understand from this that i need to take more time to get to know someone before judging them.

I recommend this text to people trying to learn french as it would be a good help with vocabulary and context. Also I recommend this book for students as this movie is good for doing film reviews, reading logs and essays because it is full of interesting themes and ideas.