♥♥♥♥♥
+ Best Adaptation of the Year + Best Coming-of-age Movie of the Year + Best Paris Movie of the Year
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| A teenage boy and veteran star Omar Sharif walk in a street on this poster for François Dupeyron's Monsieur Ibrahim |
Momo is a Jewish teenage boy in 1960s Paris, where he lives with his depression-plagued father in a prostitution street, as he develops a strong bond to the local shopkeeper, the Muslim monsieur Ibrahim.
Monsieur Ibrahim is written and directed by great French filmmaker François Dupeyron (Drôle d'Endroit pour une Rencontre (1988)), based on the same-titled novel by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt (The Sect of the Egoists/La Secte des Égoïstes (1994)) and his screenplay based on it, entitled Coran.
It is an erotic coming-of-age drama with distinguished acting from Pierre Boulanger (Road Games (2015)) portraying the lovely boy Momo and from Omar Sharif (Mother/588 rue Paradi (1991)), who gives life to the wise, vivacious title character, which would have served as an exceptional end, had Sharif chosen to retire after it. (He instead had another 17 acting credits left in him.) Gilbert Melki (Mr. Average/Comme Tout le Monde (2006)) is also good as the reserved father.
There's much more to the film here than one thinks upon first sight. It has handsome, sensual photography (by Rémy Chevrin (Delicacy/La Délicatesse (2011))) and lots of wonderful music.
Monsieur Ibrahim is truly touching, a film with (almost) everything, and surely among the year's best.
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Cost: 5.3 mil. €, approximately 6.31 mil. $
Box office: 12.3 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.94 times its cost)
[Monsieur Ibrahim premiered 29 August (Venice Film Festival) and runs 95 minutes. Shooting took place in Turkey. The film opened #50 to a 53k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #24 and in 92 theaters (different weeks), grossing 2.8 mil. $ (22.8 % of the total gross). The film's biggest market was Germany with 3.5 mil. $ (28.5 %). North America was the 2nd biggest, and Italy was 3rd biggest with 2.2 mil. $ (17.9 %). The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, won a César award, was nominated for a Goya, won a National Board of Review award and a prize in Venice, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. Dupeyron returned with Inguélézi (2004). Sharif returned in Hidalgo (2004). Monsieur Ibrahim is certified fresh at 85 % with a 7.02/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Monsieur Ibrahim?
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