Review: 'Let My People Go!' starring Nicolas Maury and Carmen Maura

Comedy can sometimes be a hard thing to translate from culture to culture and country to country. What might be funny in the US might not carry over to say Spain and vice versa. Sometimes though when a film is good enough and universal enough in its subject it can transcend those boundaries. Let My People Go! is one of these films, a French film that is a little different than what you might be used to but it is still dealing with something everyone can relate to: family.

Let My People Go! begins with our main character Ruben, a Jewish French mailman living in Finland with his school teacher husband. It starts off like any other day for them, full of happiness and romantic joy. As Ruben goes through his mail route he attempts to deliver a package to an older gentleman, which doesn’t go well when he decides he doesn’t want it and collapses. Ruben leaves the man and returns home. Once there he has a fight with his husband who then kicks him out. With no other place to go, he decides to go back home to his family in France. With Passover about to begin Ruben returns to a whole ton of hijinks going on with his really dysfunctional family.

The director does an excellent job of juggling the tone and style. The film combines fantastical whimsy with dysfunctional family humor and sex comedy touches all with ease. It's to his credit that the audience stays engaged despite the shifts in tone. The camera is kept focused on the characters throughout; and often feels very influenced by the work of Woody Allen. The script is very funny; it’s constantly throwing things at you to laugh at. The characters are very direct and to the point and at times very abrasive to each other throughout the entire film. The actors' body language and facial expressions really helps sell the emotions, important for a subtitled film like this.

Nicolas Maury plays Ruben, the main character in the film. He plays this character in what feels like the manic pixy dream boy, like a male version of the type of character Zooey Deschanel always plays. What’s interesting is instead of this character being the focus of another, he is the main protagonist. He plays well off of Carmen Maura as his mother Rachel, whose character seems to mean well but is a bit all over the place in how she handles things. Jarkko Niemi portrays Ruben’s husband Teemu, who is way more straight-laced than his mate. He plays him as a straight up square but a good guy. He’s a good straight-man in the film full of crazy people.

One issue is that there are so many characters and things that are happening that you could get lost. Once you get into how it starts, the family stuff can get crowded as each member has their own storyline. After a bit you have to make sure you are paying attention or you will get totally confused as to who is doing what and who is connected with whom.

In the end Let My People Go! is a really fantastic film that is really funny that doesn’t rely on fart humor and sight gags to get across its humor. It also handles familial dramatic moments well to give everything some solid weight. Let My people Go! should be something to go find and see while it is in theaters.