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This darkly funny French box office smash looks at the French healthcare system through the eyes of a young medical intern.Writes Excelsior: “(This is) a movie that could have been filmed anywhere where those working in the public health sector face great obstacles.”
““Hippocrates” brings insight into hospital life as it both entertains and tackles real-life issues, with a terrific soundtrack to boot. That’s a pretty good prescription.”
– Mark Sommer, The Buffalo News
“The picture may be about Benjamin’s professional and personal coming-of-age, but Kateb’s Abdel may resonate with audience members afterward. As well as the movie’s perceptive, sobering, and sometimes moving examination of life on a medical front line.”
– George Sax, The Public
“I like this film….Reda Kateb is quite excellent. You might have seen him in Zero Dark Thirty and he won Best Supporting Actor for this film at the recent César Awards. I hope we see a lot more of him in upcoming films.”
– E. Ladd, Artvoice
“Vincent Lacoste is riveting as young intern facing personal and professional crises.”
– James Verniere, Boston Herald
“Filmmakers with significant life experience outside the creative arts are becoming ever rarer creatures, but France’s Thomas Lilti exploits his original career to the fullest in his fitfully engaging comedy-drama Hippocrates.”
– Charlies Gant, Variety
“A darkly comic, socially potent portrait of a Paris hospital as seen through the eyes of a young intern making his very first rounds.”
– Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter
“(Cesar-winner Reta Kateb) gives the film compassion and humanity as an Algerian doctor battling casual racism as he fights to care for his patients.”
– Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly
Hippocrates, Diary of a French Doctor is a darkly comic portrait of a Paris hospital as seen through the eyes of a young intern, Benjamin, played by Vincent Lacoste (Eden), who begins his internship at the hospital ward run by his father.
Confident and determined that he will quickly become a successful doctor, Vincent soon realizes that the reality of the medical world is a lot grimmer than what he had imagined. He is also overshadowed by his co-junior partner Abdel, a foreign doctor, played by Reda Kateb (Lost River, Zero Dark Thirty) who’s obviously more competent than he is but who’s forced to work as an intern because of his immigrant status.
When Vincent makes a medical error, his father quickly covers it up but Abdel is not fooled… A charming counterpoint to shows like Grey’s Anatomy and House, Hippocrates, Diary of a French Doctor is framed as a rite of passage set against a social backdrop and offers an ultra-realistic vision of the French public medical system.
Helmed by Thomas Lilti, an M.D himself, the film was a box-office hit in its native France, earned Reda Kateb a Cesar for best supporting actor, and is currently touring US festivals such as Rendez Vous With French Cinema in New York and COLCOA in Los Angeles. (C) DistriB
