Review of The Class (2007) by Ghiuli R — 23 Feb 2010

Amazing, simple, yet so complex. At first glance this could be seen as a movie about a school teacher's struggles in dealing with his students, but there's so much more to it. Is about multicultural societies, is about France, with everything good or bad that comes from it.

What I liked above everything in this movie was the dialog, it was genuine, but the acting was also terrific; the lead is making a brilliant work as the professor. The surprise was finding out that the cast was formed out of amateurs, and the actor that plays professor Marin is actually the author that wrote the novel which this movie is based on.

Also, unlike so many similar movies, "Entre les murs" doesn't try to make the viewer fell better, it tells it how it is, the teacher doesn't become a hero, his actions being quite ambiguous at times, his pupils don't get more clever or kinder, they remain almost unchanged by the experience of a year school, and that was like a breath of fresh air for me to have an ending that doesn't compromise the movie.