Rumba la vie

Not long ago it was Dany BOON who was driving through the streets of Paris IM TAXI MIT MADELEINE / IN A TAXI WITH MADELEINE, and now Franck DUBOSC is a school bus driver in the area around Cergy-Pontoise, northwest of Paris. After a heart attack, the single man in his mid-fifties remembers his daughter (very sweet: Louna ESPINOSA), whom he once abandoned as a baby. In order to get closer to her again, he attends her dance class in Paris and learns Latin American dances...

Feel-good cinema from France with grumpy but lovable characters! Wonderfully cast right down to the supporting roles! Successful author and "eternal" Nobel Prize candidate Michel HOUELLEBECQ is great as a doctor who recommends a lot of exercise and regular mattress sports to his patients. A prime role for the provocateur who is not above any excess in real life.

The film, which is worth seeing, sold 283,999 tickets in French cinemas (as of early June 2023). Rumba, Tango, Cha Cha Cha - a guarantee of success not only at the EUROVISION Song CONTEST. What KÄÄRIJÄ from Finland can do, the French can do even better!

I really liked this movie. It's well written, directed and acted. It's about a bond between a father and a daughter, forgiveness, friendship and about dance. It's not corny or too sentimental, it's just OK. The young actress playing the daughter is a revelation: acts very well, can sing and dance, and is very charming. I don't usually like rumba, samba or tango, but the scenes here about dancing are so well written and directed I began to appreciate and enjoy it. Unlike in the movie "Let's dance" with JLo and Richard Gere, which also tells a story revolving around dancing classes, but is a much inferior movie. One small, tasty detail also worth mentioning is the minor role played by the famous writer Michel Houllebecq, as a cardiologist. He does it surprisingly well. Overall, I highly recommend this film.

A tight and well written script with a stand out performance has created a touching film about family bonds and the journey to forgiveness. With masterful dance choreography and direction Rumba la vie oozes with soul and offers a comedic and touching tale of righting the wrongs of ones past. Louna Espinosa's performance as daughter Maria was sublime and I left with great excitement to see where her future roles take her.

Rumba la vie celebrates life in all its forms and caught me swinging between laugher and tears. A lasting impression has been left on Ol' Frankie Flick, and my highest accolades have been given.

This is the sort of movie Americans mean when they say "they don't make movies like that anymore." The French still do. This has fine actors playing a well-written script with interesting and developed characters that allow the actors to create three-dimentional figures.

My only problem with this movie is that the turning point, where the relationship between the two main characters falls apart for awhile, is hard to accept. How could he not have been able to find some way to get back into the theater? (I don't want to spoil this movie for anyone, so I'm being very vague.)

Don't worry about the dance theme if you don't like dance; there isn't that much of it. It's about several characters and how their lives intertwine.