Crisis-hit France has found escape from its ever grimmer economic reality in a feel-good buddy movie about a quadriplegic aristocrat and his black home-help that has stormed the box office.

“An unreal world for a tired France,” was Rue89 news website’s description of the surprise hit Intouchables (Untouchables), which has drawn five million viewers in its first two weeks of release.

The film beat off stiff competition from Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster The Adventures of Tintin to reach the top of the French box office.

Based on a true story, it stars Francois Cluzet as a wealthy quadriplegic whose life is turned upside down when he hires a wisecracking young black man just out of prison, played by Omar Sy, to take care of him.

Billed as a feel-good buddy film that illustrates the virtue of tolerance and the power of friendship, Intouchables also tackles issues such as disability, prejudice and the yawning gap between the haves and the have-nots of French society.

“France is like Philippe, the quadriplegic in the film: Immobile, impotent, ageing. And hanging on to the improbable dream that somebody or something will come and, without brutality, wake her up,” wrote Rue89.

France has been less badly hit than other European countries by the economic crisis, but unemployment is rising, economic growth is weak, and President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government is implementing tough austerity measures to reduce the massive public debt.

All that has left many French decidedly gloomy about the future.

Marianne magazine said Intouchables provided the perfect dose of escapism that people here need in these hard times.