The Class (2008)
Average Rating: 8.1/10
Reviews Counted: 146
Fresh: 141 | Rotten: 5
Energetic and bright, this hybrid of documentary style and dramatic plotting looks at the present and future of France through the interactions of a teacher and his students in an inner city high school.
Average Rating: 8.3/10
Critic Reviews: 40
Fresh: 40 | Rotten: 0
Energetic and bright, this hybrid of documentary style and dramatic plotting looks at the present and future of France through the interactions of a teacher and his students in an inner city high school.
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 11,763
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Movie Info
François is a tough but fair teacher working in one of France's toughest schools, and his honest demeanor in the classroom has made him a great success with the students. But this year things are different, because when the students begin to challenge his methods François will find his classroom ethics put to the ultimate test. François Bégaudeau stars in director Laurent Cantet's entry into the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
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Cast
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François Bégaudeau
François, François, Fr... -
Franck Keita
Souleymane -
Nassim Amrabt
Nassim -
Esmerelda Ouertani
Sandra -
Laura Baquela
Laura -
Cherif Bounaïdja Rachedi
Cherif -
Huang Wei
Wei -
Juliette Demaille
Juliette -
Rachel Regulier
Khoumba -
Carl Nanor
Carl -
Henriette Kasaruhanda
Henriette -
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The Class Trailer & Photos
All Critics (147) | Top Critics (40) | Fresh (144) | Rotten (5) | DVD (5)
But ultimately it's a fascinating, sometimes exhilarating movie that seems to make a genuine contact with the classroom, and shows us an educational system struggling, and managing, to survive.
Top CriticMost impressive, Cantet tracks the racial and ethnic resentments that simmer beneath the classroom discussions but become harder to quell when the parents get involved.
The Class, an Oscar-nominated French film about a Paris middle school, should be required viewing for anybody considering a career in teaching.
The fact that it's based on a book written by a former teacher who also stars in the film gives it more than a bit of authenticity
These kids aren't always all right. But they are consistently riveting.
A sparkling, clever work whose ensemble cast impresses, surprises, wrongfoots and disappoints you in exactly the same fashion a class might its teacher.
Seems to question the continued effectiveness of an old teaching approach and its ability to adapt to new problems as well as modern variations of old ones.
In the tidiest pitch-speak, it's the Dardennes do Degrassi, a convincingly intimate glimpse at the epic battle waged against apathy in schools the world over.
The Class has considerable urgency and growing humor
creates dramatic energy without a tightly delineated storyline
A great achievement in cinematic realism...when conflict arises, and it frequently does, the filmmakers refuse to instruct us on who's right and who's wrong, making the film its own kind of Socratic lecture. [Blu-ray]
Un film tan realista que parece un documental ficcionado, y que se beneficia de la naturalidad de sus "actores". No es un film dramático tradicional, es más bien una reflexión sobre el sistema educativo y los vínculos dentro del salón de clase.
Cantet's film lulls the spectator into the rhythms of the everyday reality of school, belying a very carefully coordinated narrative structure that only becomes apparent in its final act.
Like a more serious, academic version of The Office.
The most authentic and honest film about high school students and teachers to date.
An astonishing achievement for writer-actor François Bégaudeau who adapted his own book for the screenplay and also stars in this absorbing film about the challenges of teaching in a public school.
One of the best school pics ever made.
It feels so "real," its fluid camera style like a cinéma-vérité.
A tonic to the Hollywood teacher movie.
...this doesn't fall into the easy cliches of the teacher at the bad school miraculously winning over the kids.
...so low key and naturalistically realized that it could easily be mistaken for a documentary
What sets The Class apart isn't simply its less-than-cozy tone, but the fact that it constantly plays against our expectations.
A piercing look at a generation gap that only seems to be gaping ever more widely.
Audience Reviews for The Class
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- François: The school won't be expelling Souleymane. He's been gone for a while.
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Foreign Titles
- Entre les murs (DE)
- The Class (Entre les murs) (UK)
From a thematic perspective, The Class's American counterparts are Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers, but these films often deploy the teacher-as-savior motif that characterizes much of how teachers are portrayed in cinema. In these films the teacher becomes a moral coach before s/he concentrates on course content. S/he is teacher-as-inspiration before teacher-as-teacher. But this motif is not deployed in The Class. Though we certainly have moments when Marin delves into a moral tangent, I cannot say that he emerges as the unquestioned hero in the way that protagonists in other films do. And if the film questions the protagonist, it does so subtly. In fact, toward the beginning, educator to educator, I couldn't tell what he was doing wrong.
Oftentimes the film is quite bleak, portraying student resistance in realistic and dramatically compelling ways. And though by the end of the film, we're left wondering how education is even possible, there is a measure of hope in the realization that the system of pedagogy is generally sound, that students are generally well-meaning and capable, and that somehow many people emerge from the morass of adolescence and structured schooling as predominantly well-adjusted individuals.
Overall, The Class is a remarkable film that proves beyond a doubt that teaching is the hardest job on the planet.