Bacon on the Side

Watching Leila's filmography actually, i have really the feeling to live again all my moments with my Moroccan friend. After a movie about our relation, another about her kid, now it's about our families. This movie has the same plot than a previous french movie that i have reviewed (« Mauvaise Foi ») but this romance between a « French » girl and a Muslim guy is much better. Maybe because the casting is much better (Leila plays in the 2 movies), maybe because it's filled with real life experience as the director is the real girlfriend of the Muslim doctor. In all cases, it was funny to find the same situations that i have lived : the food rules, the holy days, helping the parents, the wedding with the split tables, the encounter with a real sheep (not in the bathroom for me !). This comedy is witty, funny and in our time, it's good to hear that it's likely to have fun with religion or with roots. I can only regret that the opposition is sometimes a bit too classic : as another french movie that i have reviewed (« qu'est ce que t'es belle » , this one also with Geraldine), the « french » family is wealthy while the Muslim one lives in suburb ! But as it's also another movie with Geraldine, i had really a good time.

"We" (the color blind whites) are so nice. Our close relatives might be rabid, but we are so tolerant. "They" (the darker skinned people identified as foreigners) are the racists. Not us. Them. And they can be so backward! And sometimes we can't take so much racism from them, even if we live with racists who look just like us.

Every tolerable stereotype is brought here. The womanizer Muslim about to marry somebody else. The colorful and noisy "them" kind of marriage.

Bottom line this is yet another line on somebody's resume. A state bureaucrat promoting diversity. Some university graduates with dreams of Sundance and Tribeca, only they do not speak enough English to fill up the entry form. These are not the people who will start an ethnic cleansing, but they are very racist anyway. Even in the way they use the token Maghrebin girl expressing the racist viewer's concern: the Algerian doctor might impose the veil on the poor blonde French girl.

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