In an American picture (think Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers), Francois would wrangle the mavericks and make them receptive to lessons that translate into high marks on college entrance exams.
But French movies are not so neatly resolved. In fact, the point of many French movies, such as this provocative one from director Laurent Cantet, is that some problems don't have satisfying solutions - or resolutions.
Francois, charismatic and sometimes testy, is played by Francois Bégaudeau, the real-life schoolteacher and writer whose autobiographical novel inspired the movie. Like English director Mike Leigh, Cantet works with themes rather than a script and has his actors (in the case of The Class, actual Parisian middle-schoolers) workshop and improvise scenes that ultimately are incorporated into the final movie. The result is a film that breathes and aches and laughs like life.
A French instructor and stickler for proper usage, Francois idealistically believes that by teaching his students the language of their adoptive country, he is unifying the sons and daughters of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean who have emigrated to France.
His students are skeptical. Who cares about the language spoken by those who treat them like outsiders? I was totally with the students who complained that they didn't need to learn past and imperfect tenses.
Out to electrify his students, Francois discovers his current isn't compatible with all of them. How does he reach the stubborn Sandra (Esmeralda Ouertani), a Franco-Arab with a chip on her shoulder big as Gibraltar? How does he get to belligerent Souleymane (Franck Keita), an immigrant from Mali who resists the resourceful teacher's attempts to get to know him?
