The Class

An autobiographical portrayal of french teacher (i.e. a French person who teaches French in France) Francois whose job in a Paris high school is trying at best. Most of the teachers at the school are new and most of the students don't care one bit about their education. Francois himself is not the seasoned teacher he thinks as he struggles with how to control his classroom, how to engage his students, and how to relate to his colleagues. As a teacher, I am obviously the target audience for this film. Unfortunately, and I am surprised I say this, there is not enough message or hope here. While hopelessness may be the theme that the writer is going for, this could have been a very strong movie had Francois been a bit more thoughtful about how to engage his students. There was no development of the characters maturity (either the students or the teachers) and when the film ended, everything was exactly how it started. Francois did not challenge his students to use the hardships (albeit created hardships) of class and life to learn to write or think. There were several obvious "teaching moments" that were overlooked because of the despair. So while I enjoyed the film, and laughed at the student-teacher interactions throughout, I really did expect more. I wanted this to be a 4 or 5 star movie, but alas...
3-stars