Let My People Go!
Directed by Mikael Buch
A sweet and hilarious fusion of gay romantic comedy, Jewish family drama and French bedroom farce, Mikael Buch’s Let My People Go! follows the travails and daydreams of the lovelorn Ruben (Regular Lovers’ Nicolas Maury), a French-Jewish gay mailman living in fairytale Finland (where he got his MA in “Comparative Sauna Cultures”) with his gorgeous Nordic boyfriend. But just before Passover, a series of mishaps and a lovers’ quarrel exile the heartbroken Ruben back to Paris and his zany family—including Almodovar goddess Carmen Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Volver) as his ditzy mom, and Truffaut regular Jean-François Stévenin as his lothario father. Scripted by director Mikael Buch and renowned arthouse auteur Christophe Honoré (Love Songs),Let My People Go! both celebrates and upends Jewish and gay stereotypes with wit, gusto and style to spare. The result is deeply heartwarming, fabulously kitschy and hysterically funny.
WINNER - AUDIENCE AWARD - BEST COMEDIC FILM - PHILADELPHIA QFEST
WINNER - BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY - ASHEVILLE QFEST
Critical Acclaim
A bubbly froth of gay camp and comic Jewish hysteria.... Will bring smiles of recognition to anyone who hasn’t seen early Woody Allen in a while.
A charmingly wacky, unpredictable comedy that is filled with fun cinematic references, with the first-time feature-film director openly paying tribute to his many influences with an infectious glee.
Let My People Go! is built on a foundation of sweetness and smarts.
Cartoonish situations, broad characterizations and color-saturated Pierre-et-Gilles aesthetic amplify each narrative stroke, resulting in a satisfying if not wholly filling bonbon of a film.
Candy-colored and sugarcoated, Let My People Go! tosses gay stereotypes into a Jewish holiday, adds the bedroom-door-banging beats of French farce, then piles on the dysfunction.
A fairy-tale romance whose title acknowledges both a saturation in and longing to be free of Jewish cultural baggage, Mikael Buch's Let My People Go! cross-breeds cultures that are rarely paired onscreen.
Romantic comedies may be commonplace at the multiplex. However, throw in a little Jewish guilt, a gay friendly plot and a bit of farce, and you’ve got the quirkiest love story to release in 2012.
If you're looking for a comedy and an entertaining fun movie, you will have to see Let My People Go!
For a fun, undemanding time at the movies, one couldn’t do much better than the sweet zaniness of Mikael Buch’s Let My People Go!
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