A predictable "feel good" film from France

Rating: 3/10 (5 September 2012)

What is the difference between a film "based on a true story" and one "inspired by a true story"? This was inspired by a true story, and at the end gives an update on the real-life characters after which those in the story were patterned, but we really don't know how much of the storyline in the film really took place. I am assuming the writers of the screenplay took certain liberties, especially to evoke the sympathies which they thought (correctly) would lead to a hit.
Most of the audience in the theater in which I saw the film (in Brazil) laughed uproariously, I cringed at what seemed to me obvious and unoriginal jokes, and a storyline with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The rich white guy need an assistant and hires the brash young Senegalese man (Algerian, in real life), who, of course, knows about living life to the fullest, and listening to upbeat music (inexplicably, 30 year-old songs from Earth, Wind & Fire). The black man dances well, of course. Several times he is given a task he feels demeaning and onerous (e.g., wiping the older man's behind), and at first refuses, but inevitably quickly acquiesces.
I have to admit I tuned out a few times, waiting for the film to end (I was there with my spouse so didn't walk out), so can't say for sure, but I don't believe the film touched on an obvious question: what if the poor African immigrant had been the disabled one, and the rich, white French businessman had been able-bodied? They probably would never have met, but if they had, what would have been the dynamics? All in all, the film seemed to have more elements of "Driving Miss Daisy" than of the also-true story of a disabled French man (and much better-written and acted), "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."