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Poster for Beach Café

Beach Café

2001 · 83 min

A sun-bleached, low-key character study that drifts between wry humour and quiet unease, watching ambition curdle into resentment.

Directed by
Benoît Graffin
Genres
Comedy, Drama
Starring
Ouassini Embarek, Jacques Nolot, Leïla Belarbi
Overview
Driss is a jack-of-all trades type who sells fish from his car and moves furniture from one end of his hometown Tangiers to the other. His girlfriend is a free-spirited and wealthy European lass who runs an antique shop. One day, Driss becomes fascinated with Fouad, an old man who runs a rundown café by the beach. Fouad disdains his fellow Moroccans, calling them lazy, preferring the company of Europeans -- particularly, as Driss later learns -- young European women. Always on the make, Driss offers Fouad a business proposition -- to revamp his establishment and turn it into a proper restaurant with Driss as his business partner. He is later shocked and hurt to learn that Fouad starts to remodel his business but without Driss. Sending out his friends as spies, Driss learns a number of unsettling things about his would-be associate.

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In the UKNo streaming, rental or purchase options known.
Directed by
Benoît Graffin
Genres
Comedy, Drama
Starring
Ouassini Embarek, Jacques Nolot, Leïla Belarbi
In your watch list

How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone
  • melancholicstrength 2 of 3
  • satiricalstrength 2 of 3
  • warmstrength 1 of 3
  • tensestrength 1 of 3
Pacing
measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention
engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes
  • ambition
  • betrayal
  • class
  • identity
  • obsession
Places
  • small town
  • workplace
Era
contemporary
Audience
adult
Form
None
Content intensity
  • Gore none
  • Language mild
  • Violence mild
  • Sex mild
All scales, 0 to 10
Scales, 0 to 10
ScaleValue0 to 10
Action2
Horror1
Humour4
Realism8
Romance3
Tension3
Darkness4
Complexity5
Emotional weight5

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Where to watch in the UK

No UK streaming, rental or purchase options are known.

Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

Details

Genres
comedy, drama
Directed by
Benoît Graffin
Written by
Benoît Graffin, André Téchiné
Starring
Ouassini Embarek, Jacques Nolot, Leïla Belarbi, Delia Amrani, Meriem Serbah, Mohamed El Hasnaoui, Ayoub Rachati, Nadem Rachati
Music
Philippe Miller
Cinematography
Yorick Le Saux
Runtime
83 min
Country
France
Languages
English, Arabic, French

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