Review of Monsieur Lazhar (2011) by Late R — 16 Aug 2017

At its core, it's a story about coming to terms with severe grief from traumatic events, from the perspective of both adults and children, and how they can or should help each other. Written and directed with subtlety, 'Monsieur Lazhar' has an appropriately bleak feel to it and forgoes any sort of melodrama, opting instead to concentrate on capturing a, perhaps, more realistic version of events that unfurls in a natural manner.

However, that also means that there were very few truly affecting scenes, bar one or two where raw emotion was on display. Add to that the somewhat bland characters and you have a well-meaning and realistic-feeling story that simply isn't as touching as it should be.