User reviews

Overall I was bored while watching this movie. Several short stories make up the film and a couple of them were humorous. Most of them were heavy and somewhat dark. Dany Boon was terrific as always and Charlotte Gainsbourg was magnetic. I didn't really enjoy this movie but I was curious enough about what would happen that I watched through to the end.

I thought this was a great film. I do emphatically disagree that one needs to be Jewish to appreciate the film. In fact the same types of stereotypes exist against minority communities everywhere. One could make this film about Greeks in Turkey, Israeli stereotypes against Palestinians living in Israel, Koreans living in Japan and scores and scores of other examples.

Yvan (Yvan Attal) is French, atheist and lots of other things as he describes himself to his councillor in the opening scene... including being a Jew. He also wrote and directed this. Being Jewish and not religious, not bound at the heart to Israel, not fluent in Hebrew seems to confuse a baffling amount of people. Yvan finds this and does what many Jews do, which is not hide his jewish identity, but doesn't broadcast it either... until he made this film. Being Jewish bizarrely seems to hold a stigma still in some countries... certainly in France. Anyway Yvan is a remote narrator in this tale. He's talking to his counsellor and their sessions hypothesise on a number of Jewish stereotypes, each depicted by a short vignette. So we get the far right politician and her downtrodden husband who discovers he's Jewish on his grandmother's death bed and starts checking the size of his nose, only to realise he's now got the perfect ammunition to get back at his wife. Then there's the divorced woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg), cursing her ex for being the only poor Jew, making him think there's been a mistake and he can't possibly be Jewish until his dad wins the lottery and everyone starts chasing the money. Conspiracies that Jews only help one another, rule the world etc. The usual antisemitic crap. The problem here is it's supposed to be inventive, insightful satirical and funny... it's not. Not even the time travelling Mossad hitman mistaken for The Messiah on a mission to kill Jesus, that falls in love with Mary. Or the chaos started when a ginger guy annoyed that Jews get sympathy for the Holocaust starts a movement to promote the suffering of redheads. Or a referendum to make France a Jewish state and convert all citizens. I guess the idea is to mock the stereotypes, but because it's so cold and uninspired it really doesn't achieve that. I'd hate to think it fuels further antisemitism. It's thankfully too crap for that, but it's seems like a vanity project that's really missed the target.

Ils Sont Partout is quite an entertaining movie. I don't watch a lot of French cinema but I watch it enough to recognize some of the actress/actors in this film.

I would understand, this film might be more interesting (and funnier) if you're Jewish. As a Muslim, living in the anti-Jewish Muslim world, this film explains to me the culture, the tradition and the struggle of the Jewish community faced, and it been laid out brilliantly.

I could not finish it at one shot watching it. I have to continue the next day because it is quite long, but this film is brilliant if you are into short film or if you want to learn other culture.

And you know it still has its moments, but as a movie overall it just doesn't work. You would have had more fun and more entertainment, if this was done in a weekly television program, a comedy show so to speak. Or just the best jokes put in a short movie. I really thought there would have been more, especially with the talent attached to the project acting-wise.

French cinema has produced some very entertaining and very successful comedies the last couple of years. And they mostly did not care about political correctness. In that regard this movie is in the same vain. Unfortunately it's one of the few things this has in common with the other movies. So if you think of those other movies, better set the bar way low. As low as the humor sometimes sinks.

By far the worst movie I have ever watched... and lasting almost 2 hours : I tried hard but just could not finish it, and even regreted the 90 minutes I wasted watching the never ending bunch of garbage. Such a pity and disappointment, when you see the actors playing in it. This movie basically made me think less of them.

This film is a must watch if you're Jewish and growing increasingly fed up with the growing levels of antisemitism across the west. I can only imagine its relatively poor score on this site is down to the fact that most reviewers don't fall into that category.

Because this film is funny - hilarious in fact. I was crying with laughter in places. But it may only be funny if you're Jewish and recognise the stereotypes, both in the sketches and in the main character, a Jewish man seeking therapy for being obsessed with the Jews and anti-semitism.

Excerpts from his therapy sessions are interspersed with what are essentially short stories, each one revolving around a Jewish stereotype and featuring a cast of characters who don't reappear. There's the Jew who wonders why he isn't rich when all the others are; the Nazi who belatedly discovers that he is a Jew; two Jews arguing over increasingly outlandish hypotheticals relating to chimney sweeps. The oddest short story involves a Mossad agent who travels back in time to kill Jesus, proving once again that in French cinema, literally anything can happen.

At times it's quite poignant and thought provoking, the director has been clever enough not to go just for laughs all the time, the result being that when they do come, they act as much as comic relief as mere entertainment. Which is precisely what we Jews need in this day and age, isn't it? A bit of comic relief.

This movie is just bad. I'm not even speaking about the how it's full of hate against the rest of humanity, but just as a movie, scenario, photography is just terrible. I feel like I was raped of my time watching this.

Excellent understated sense of humour. Couldn't stop rolling from laughter. Not sure whether I would have enjoyed it as much if I had watched it in a proper movie theater. However watching it on cable in the comfort of my living room was definitely a winner. Some of the creative ideas in the script are so mad that I need to hold back with great effort from describing them here, to avoid including spoilers in this review

I thought this was intelligently made for a comedy, most of them today being full of many cliches and over acting for easy laughs.

I don't see many French/Euro comedies but for comparison I liked this more than Look Who's Back, the German film about Hitler. The acting and directing are not as obvious as that film.

Most of the cast, between 7-10 of them, put on a good performance. They also manage to avoid the Annoyance Factor with movies about 'us minorities' and how everyone misjudges us. This is clever in that regard because most film makers do that terribly and attract the ire of a mainly right wing crowd who wince at the political correctness.

Yvan Attal must be commended because this isn't PC; it goes into the depths of irrational thinking about 'background' without hitting people over the head with the anti-semetism diatribe. But it is primarily quite a hilarious movie.

One of those rare find, you know browsing stuff to watch and baam there you are. Ils sont partous or The Jews is an extremely good movie to watch, illustrating the grating lives of Jewish people while weaving dark humour in it and at the same time maintaining coherence in the plot. Not one boring moment in it.

It helps if you're already familiar with some of the religious and cultural themes - and have a thick skin - some of this stuff is so funny it's gotta be offending somebody somewhere

Left me speechless. Must see! It reeches the depts of the humanity in a subtle way that is just brilliant

Although it's about Jews, the satirical presentation makes any maligned group ask themselves the same question. Why do they hate us? Whether it's a redhead, a tribe, a race, you name it. If you begin to dwell on the prejudice and suffering, you will always see the 'enemy' of your group wherever you go. They are everywhere. I see some negative reviews and wonder why. I found this movie quite deep. Maybe I am shallow.

I came across this hidden gem only days after finishing the three series of "Shtisel". An interesting coincidence. Not being a Jew, I came well equipped to grasp all the subtle ways in which Yvan Attal deals with Jewish stereotypes in his film. Ok, in order to enjoy it one has to be pretty open minded- Jew or not Jew, but especially Jew. From the anti semitic politician who discovers he is a Jew himself, the only poor Jew in the world, the two rabbis discussing in depth the washing of the chimney sweeps to the bombing of Paris only months after the French declared themselves Jew by referendum, this film is an exquisite comedy pretty much in the vein of the Monty Python series. Dramatic accents here and there remind the viewer that this in not all in jest. Facts remain facts. All in all, "Ils sont partout" is a comedy made up of separate sketches which makes one- but not anyone- burst out with laughter every few minutes.

A very amusing critique, that black humor we love, and the exposure of prejudice in particular, the anti-Semitism of the French, who touch their own wound in a phenomenal way, we hope it will act as a contribution to any and all prejudices, EVERYWHERE in the world , fun, irreverent, intelligent, necessary, critical...

I suspect that the French director, co-writer and actor Yvan Attal managed to magically steal one of our family's favorite jokes for his film 'Ils sont partout' (2016). This is exactly how, in French, my wife and I have reacted for decades now when encountering any of the stereotypes about Jews. Same as we do, everyone says 'They are everywhere: Jews and their friends when they boast about the lists of Nobel prizes and other achievements of talented Jews, but also anti-Semites when it comes to looking for scapegoats for all the evils of world. 'Ils sont partout' is right this - a film about stereotypes related to Jews, some anecdotal, others stupid, which depending on the circumstances can be a source of humor of better or worse quality, but also one of the manifestations of that form of racism that produced so much suffering throughout history: anti-Semitism. 'Ils sont partout' compiles a collection of such stereotypes and exemplifies them in a series of comical mini-episodes. The approach is sarcastic and full of humor directed against prejudices, without avoiding aspects from within the Jewish community and life. But the main target is clear and the film is - unfortunately - even more relevant today than in 2016. The title in the English distribution is much less funny - simply 'The Jews'.

The link between the different episodes is pseudo-autobiographical. After a theatre performance, Yvan Attal is accosted in a bar by an excited spectator who asks him about his religion, intrigued by the fact that the actor had refused to order an alcoholic drink as a treat. Confronted with the vulgarity of the man he met by chance, the hero of the film asks himself questions about his own Jewishness: what does it mean to be Jewish for a French man, atheist, completely culturally integrated? Serious question, for which he will resort to the services of a psychoanalyst. The answer is the collection of episodes which, however, avoids any moralizing direction and urges its viewers to think hard. A few examples: the husband of a far-right politician (any resemblance to real politicians...) discovers upon the death of his maternal grandmother that she was Jewish, which makes him technically Jewish too; a French president who bears a striking resemblance to François Hollande decides to put to a referendum the decision that all French citizens convert to Judaism; the Mossad sends an agent into the past to prevent the birth of Jesus in order to destroy the 'Jews killed the Messiah' stereotype; etc. Not all episodes are on the same level or tackle the same kind of humor. Some episodes will upset some people, other will upset others, a few will upset everybody. But if the satire doesn't offend, then it probably isn't sharp enough.

I liked 'Ils sont partout', and not just because the identity issues it tackles are familiar to me. A formidable gallery of well-known French actors (and not just actors) participated in this project and their performances are delicious, even if some of them only appear only in one scene. First of all Yvan Attal himself, the psychologist Tobie Nathan as ... the psychologist, Benoît Poelvoorde, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Denis Podalydès, Gilles Lellouche, the television journalist Claire Chazal. Several well-known Israeli actors also collaborate: Romanian-born theater man Niko Nitai in his last screen appearance, Rivka Michaeli, Ilan Dar. I laughed at this movie which deals with a very serious topic. The film is about Jews, but the issues it raises and even the stereotypes it satirizes are not unique and exist in one form or another in any discrimination against ethnic, racial, or religious minorities. We are everywhere.