The broad comedy “Let My People Go!” takes place in the days leading up to Passover. So it is incumbent on us to ask, how is this movie different from all other movies?
It’s a gay French-Jewish film of recent vintage with no reference to anti-Semitism. One of the Four Questions is sung not once but twice. It has the social awareness of the 2010s and the design and fashion sense of the 1970s.
Last but hardly least, the fact that the youngest, 20-something son is gay is a complete nonissue for the French-Jewish family at the center of the film.
In that way and many others, “Let My People Go!” is a color-saturated fantasy of a prejudice-free, sexually satisfied Europe. Those who go to the movies for escape will readily succumb to first-time director Mikael Buch’s coming-of-age confection.
“Let My People Go! opens today in San Francisco and Berkeley, and April 26 in Larkspur.
The sunny pop farce begins in bucolic Finland, where dark-haired Ruben (Nicolas Maury) lives happily with blond boyfriend Teemu (Jarkko Niemi). Ruben works as a mailman in a picture-perfect village seemingly plucked from the MGM lot in the ’30s.
Except for the Finnish dialogue, of course. Anyway, a confrontation with a resident and a misunderstanding on Teemu’s part compels Ruben to return to Paris and his slightly addled family.
It takes 30 seconds for us to realize that Ruben fled the 19th arrondissement for the middle of nowhere to evade his mother’s well-meaning condescension and his father’s clumsy indifference. His older siblings love him but perhaps resent his freedom to vanish. (And return on a whim, and if the urge arises, jet off again.)
Freedom is the major theme of the seder, of course, although Ruben discovers a curious lack of it once he’s in Paris. His luggage is missing, so he’s forced to wear whatever his mother (Pedro Almodovar veteran Carmen Maura) digs out for him. A gray-bearded lawyer and pillar of the shul (Jean-Luc Bideau) makes a forceful pass that further discombobulates our displaced, lovesick hero.
Finally, in an unbelievable sequence of events, Ruben, his father and brother end up in jail on the first night of Passover. By this point, we know better than to read into it as a historical or political metaphor.
“Let My People Go!” is intent on riding a wave of good will and blissful production design that has the side benefit of underscoring the lightness and masking the slightness of the story.
In the press notes, the director cites Woody Allen, Jacques Demy (“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”) and Wes Anderson (“The Royal Tenenbaums”) as influences, and their sensibilities are clearly reflected in the dialogue, music and art direction, respectively.
“Let My People Go!” simply wants to give pleasure, and that’s one more thing that makes it different from most movies.
“Let My People Go!” opens Friday, April 19 at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco and the Shattuck in Berkeley, and Friday, April 26 at the Lark in Larkspur. In French and Finnish with English subtitles. (Unrated, 86 minutes)