Ladj Ly’s fight to demonstrate the failure of the State through the forced resilience of the most disadvantaged continues to work, but the Frenchman now also faces the inevitable comparison of his new work with the success of the previous one. In this battle, has exchanged the electrifying magnetism and force of ‘Les Misérables’ for the drama of ‘Los undesirables’, a story that is still attractive for what it tells, but that does not end up doing so in a truly remarkable way.
Its colorful beginning, a scene that links the tragedy of a community that has to take its dead down the stairs of the block with the sudden death of a mayor in the middle of the demolition of a building, marks the thick line of a title he wins by relying on Anta Diaw, the actress who plays a young activist who, tired of enduring the evils of a bureaucracy that only seeks to make her uncomfortable, decides to fix things from within. Her story, intertwined with that of a new mayor who finds himself turned into a sadly realistic caricature, does not manage to go very far in a film that does not dare to detach itself from its premise.
To remember that these other realities continue in ours.
The best: the sincerity that Anta Diaw transmits in each shot.
Worst: It does not stand out among other similar proposals.
Data sheet
Address: Ladj Ly Distribution: Alexis Manenti, Anta Diaw, Jeanne Balibar, Steve Tientcheu, Valentin Pradier, Aristote Luyindula Country: France Year: 2023 Release date: 6-19-2024 Gender: Drama Script: Ladj Ly, Giordano Gederlini Duration: 121 min.
Synopsis: Haby lives with his family in a run-down apartment block. After the sudden death of the city’s mayor, Pierre, an idealistic doctor, takes charge. He wants to continue with the neighborhood rehabilitation project, which consists of demolishing the Haby building. When she and her family discover Pierre’s plan, they will fight to stop it and stop the new mayor’s excessive ambition.
Ricardo Rosado is a film critic, cultural journalist, expert in North American comedy, horror films of any kind and everything that happens between genres and formats. Raised on Steven Spielberg films, and spoiled since he encountered David Lynch, he has been writing for a decade about the art he consumes.
In FOTOGRAMAS you will read him commenting on the latest theatrical releases, promoting peace between Marvel and DC fans, reviewing all the Star Wars news or diving into the depths of the Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video and Filmin catalogues. He also likes to make galleries and rankings of movies and series, but no one trusts his judgment too much.
After studying Audiovisual Communication at the Complutense University of Madrid, he created a film review blog with the hope of attending film festivals and press screenings for free. Now, after seven years writing in FOTOGRAMAS about the latest theatrical releases, current series and any content available on the different streaming channels, she still thinks it was worth it.
Frontman of two embarrassing musical projects, director of various video clips by heavy metal bands from Madrid and author of many short films hidden in the Internet, he is the editor and one of the proud members of the cultural podcast ‘Los de al lado de Pumares’ , a space that has allowed him to participate as a collaborator in other radio formats such as ‘Vamos de cine’ (Castilla-La Mancha Media) and ‘El Faro’ (Cadena SER), in addition to having made him one of the main voices of the videos of FRAMES.
