Élodie Bouchez in La Faute à Voltaire (2000)

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Review

Abdel Kechiche's directorial debut, La Faute à Voltaire (2000), stars Sami Bouajila as Jallel, a Tunisian who's landed himself a three-month residency in France by pretending to be an Algerian refugee. His uncles coached him on how to dupe the interviewers and flatter their Frenchness by talking up liberté, egalité, fraternité, and all that stuff, so he gets into the country tout de suite and sets out to set up a sweet new life. Hunkering down in a homeless shelter, he makes a few friends and starts working on making ends meet; then one night everything changes when he falls hard for Aure Atika, a half-Tunisian, all-over-gorgeous waitress who works at a local cafe. They become close, and he even convinces her to marry him so he can get citizenship. But she disappears on their wedding day, and Sami ends up in a psych ward. But don't fret for our hero, for if it weren't for the bughouse he'd never have met sexee Élodie Bouchez, a pert-knockered patient who peddles her gash for cash and becomes his fast friend.