The vicissitudes of a rich quadriplegic who by chance runs into Driss, a big black man and half a criminal, and hires him as his helper. The young man’s passion and his willpower will succeed in the impossible mission of restoring the desire to continue living to the disabled
. This is the plot on which “Almost friends – Intouchables” (Intouchables) 2011 film directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano. The film, inspired by a true friendship story, will air tonight 25 August on Canale 5. The plot of Almost friends
Driss (Omar Sy) is a young boy of Senegalese origin who, after being in prison, is looking for signatures to certify his participation in several job interviews in order to continue to have welfare benefits for himself and his large family . Philippe (Francois Cluzet) and a wealthy quadriplegic looking for a caregiver. Driss shows up in his grand palace with the sole purpose of collecting another signature without hoping to get the job, but Philippe, struck by his listless and disinterested behavior, unexpectedly hires him.
Initially, Driss doesn’t seem to want to make any effort to learn the duties he has to perform, and apparently his experience seems to have to end quickly. But soon the two begin to establish a beautiful relationship: Driss approaches Philippe without preconceptions unlike all the others, making him forget his physical problem. “The kite runner”, a book about friendship stronger than the war
“The kite runner” is a book by Khaled Hosseini published in 2003 and is an important story to tell the friendship
The two spend a lot of time together, wandering around the city at night as Philippe used to do in the old days, and between the two a complicity takes over that leads them to exchange confidences: Philippe confides in Driss that he has become quadriplegic after an accident that occurred while he was paragliding and that he and his wife, who in the meantime died of a tumor, could not have children and for this reason they had adopted a little girl, Elisa, with whom he no longer has frequent relations. Furthermore, Philippe has an epistolary relationship with Eleonore to which he never wanted to show himself fearing that her physical state could scare her and drive her away, but Driss encourages him not to be afraid and to have self-esteem.
Philippe, on the other hand, teaches Driss to appreciate classical music and pushes him to discover his artistic vein in the field of abstract painting, even managing to place one of his paintings to a friend for 11 thousand euros.
The two have now become “almost friends”. Mancini and Vialli, the story of a friendship as in a literary classic
The triumph of Italy at Euro 2020 gave us indelible images, such as the embrace between the technical commissioner Roberto Mancini and Gianluca Vialli, a staff member and above all a friend of a life Between fiction and reality
Taken from a true story, Almost Friends ends with images of the real protagonists of the story, from which the film was based. Some captions in the credits tell the life of Abdel Yasmin Sellou and Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, respectively the “caregiver” and the patient, after their farewell.
At the time of the events, told in the cinema almost 20 years after the actual event, and also in two highly successful books (“The Guardian Devil” and “You changed my life”) our protagonists were 43 and 21 years old. Driss worked with Philippe until 2005 when they both found or found love again. Philippe lives in Morocco, has remarried and is the father of two children, Abdel has founded his own business and is the father of three children.
