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Welcome (2009)
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Vincent Lindon (La Crise, Anything for Her) excels at playing the everyman who draws on untapped emotional resources to meet unexpected challenges. However, not even his committed turn as an altruistic Calais swimming coach can atone for the narrative contrivances in this otherwise well-meaning migrant melodrama. While in the midst of divorcing wife Marion (Audrey Dana), Lindon's Simon befriends a much-travelled Kurdish teenager (Firat Ayverdi), who is desperate to cross the Channel and reach his girlfriend in London before her father can contract an arranged marriage. Director Philippe Lioret passes incisive comment on French immigration laws and the cynicism of the local gendarmerie, and makes evocative use of forbidding images of the docks and beaches to suggest the harshness of the transient's existence. But he never convinces that such a dull but decent citizen as Simon would take so many risks to help a lovesick stranger, even if it could mean impressing Marion with his new-found sensitivity. So while this is fitfully engrossing, it frustrates, too. DP
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Tell us what you think
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Running time
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109min
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Country of origin
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Fr / Bel
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Genre
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Drama
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Original language
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French, Kurdish,English
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Screenplay
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Philippe Lioret, Olivier Adam, Emmanuel Courcol, Serge Frydman
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Theatrical distributor
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Cinefile
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UK cinema certificate
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15
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UK cinema release date
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November 2009
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Subtitling information
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In French, Kurdish and English with subtitles
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Film certification logos reproduced by kind permission of BBFC |
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