Excuse My French

You will laugh, cry, and feel every emotion in between.

Wonderfully entertaining. The acting was great as well, especially the boy who played Hang.

Simply majestic ... I didn't expect to see an Egyptian movie of that quality nowadays. In fact I lost hope of seeing one a long time ago .. The casting is amazing and reflects the great effort done by the amazing young director -Amr Salama- who created a wonderful movie and showed clearly the two different societies living in the same country , Egypt. The plot is creative and discussed the two most complicated problems in Egypt nowadays which are the Religious Persecution and the Sexual Harassment clearly thorough out the movie .. Though the reality is quite depressing yet the movie tried to focus our attention on it in a nice way ... The movie also shows the various degree of civilization and the mentality of the society in Egypt .. The main character which was Hani who was suffering from inability to fuse with the surroundings in the new school whatever he did in a way similar to the life of the director/writer as he mentioned before .. That movie has restored my faith in the Egyptian cinematography again and has given me hope that we may see a lot of Egyptian movies of the same quality soon ... My rating 9/10

And it address two issues at the same time... the two very different societies living in the same country... and the other the attempts of the Christians to reach Full acceptance amongst the society... in spite in my humble And from my observation the second issue has been improved dramatically since the revolution...

One thing I like about watching countries where there is a dominant belieft system is seeing how much remains the same even under various forms of ideological oppression. This reminds me of a Persian film where the presence of the mullahs is clear, yet most fo the problems of the main couple would be very familiar to Americans. Here we see a kid from a minority culture "passing" for a long time and the varied reactions of those around him, some rooted in predictable prejudice, some in embarassing good intentions, some universal to students everywhere. The film does have touches of quirk that justify the comparisons here to Wes Andersen, but it can also be read as a parable for any country where a minority must live - even sometimes chooses to live - within a dominant and even oppresive majority. It has a certain amount of humor and more than a little that is serious. It will probably upset some Americans' ideas of what Egypt is like (if they even have any), but it also has touches of "Karate Kid" and general coming of age movies. A bit drawn-out at times but unpredictable and even touching at others.

One of my biggest regrets of attending last year's London Film Festival is skipping out on Excuse My French when it was my next screening. It's always refreshing to find rare films as an inflight movie. Despite the circumstances, Excuse My French is still a film with a great rhythmic energy, reminiscent of the auteur work of Wes Anderson and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. While this pace is kept up throughout the whole film, it's disappointing that it doesn't implement enough quirk or edge into its content. It brushes over clichés, albeit utilising them well, but not exploring them beyond archetypal necessity. Films that dive into school environments with such immersion and heightened fantasy are usually hit-and-miss for me, and this is both at the same time. Perhaps if I understood or related more to the Muslim/Christian tension in Egypt then the film's political themes could've resonated more, but it's entertaining and empathetic at the very least. Being different and pushed around is easy to relate to in any form and well executed here. With his idiosyncratic style, Amr Salama could easily give us a couple of great commercials before breaking through with a mainstream movie if he wished to do so.

7/10