In 2011 Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano broke out in the United States with the film "The Intouchables." The movie dealt with racial issues in France in a touching and funny way. Four years later, the directors are back with "Samba," a movie that deals with immigration struggles in France. However, this time around the film is an uneven exercise which lacks the emotional pull and focus their previous film had.

Starring Imar Sy and Charlotte Gainsbourg, "Samba" tells the story of a young African (Sy) who migrated to France from Senegal and struggles to get his working papers. Meanwhile, Alice (Gainsbourg), a senior executive who has recently undergone a burn-out, tries to get her life back on track. Fate draws them together.

The film's opening image, with a steadicam shot weaving through a kitchen filled with white chefs before it settles on the illegal immigrant workers marginalized, gets the film off to a promising start. Moments later, Samba is detained due to a lack of visa. He meets Alice who becomes infatuated with him, and she tries to help him in every way in order to get his papers. The film depicts the struggles in such a gritty way from showing the jails Samba is locked in to the small disheveled apartments the illegal immigrants must live in.

However, it seems to lose its way the moment the directors decide to leave the immigration behind and embellish in a romance between Samba and Alice. The development of this love story changes the tone markedly, offering numerous attempts at slapstick that often miss the mark. It falls into the same trappings from awkwardness to making love to falling apart. Throughout these scenes, Samba's issues are lost in the background and the initial themes become almost irrelevant for a time.

The movie also has issues sticking to one tone. The beginning has a very serious tone but once the character of Walid dit Wilson (Tahar Rahim) enters the film, the directors try to give it a comic tone with the slapstick hitting fever pitch. One of the most questionable scenes in the film takes place while Samba and Walid clean the windows of a building. Walid breaks into dance to catch the attention of the women working on the floor. The scene is clearly intended to be funny, but in the overall context of the film up to that point, it feels out of place.

Walid's antics continue as he tries to lure Alice and her co-worker. In the end, his character is an attempt to give some comedy to this film while still trying to deal with immigration. However, his story, like Samba's, covers the same issues of illegal immigration and a lack of working papers. Walid ultimately disappears and his narrative is abandoned, making his presence in the overall tapestry confusing and questionable.

The tone shifts yet again in the third act with a melodramatic twist revolving around Samba sleeping with one of his friends' girlfriend. This narrative is presented in the film's gritty first act and Samba's "mistake" seems to present an interesting twist on his seemingly noble character. However, this thread, like Walid's, is also abandoned early, only to come back when a conflict is needed to bring Samba from a seeming place of elation to a moment of "despair." The biggest issue with this narrative thread is that the melodramatic handling winds up being predictive from the get-go and completely discredits the film's wayward attempts at remaining rooted in reality.

The only saving grace is the performance led by a solid and subtle Gainsbourg, whose emotions in the film come off truthfully. Sy also gives the film spirit. His emotional journey is well defined even if the script does not help him. Rahim plays his character with abandon. However, one wishes this fine actor had a better character to play with.

In the end, "Samba" means well but the film ends up being laborious, meandering and overwrought. The numerous plot threads seem to add depth, but instead tangle the themes into a confusing web from which they never manage to emerge.

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