
Teacher François Marin and his colleagues are preparing for another school year teaching at a racially mixed inner city high school in Paris. The teachers talk to each other about their prospective students, both the good and the bad. The teachers collectively want to inspire their students, but each teacher is an individual who will do things in his or her own way to achieve the results they desire. They also have differing viewpoints on the students themselves, and how bes... (Full plot summary below)
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Teacher François Marin and his colleagues are preparing for another school year teaching at a racially mixed inner city high school in Paris. The teachers talk to each other about their prospective students, both the good and the bad. The teachers collectively want to inspire their students, but each teacher is an individual who will do things in his or her own way to achieve the results they desire. They also have differing viewpoints on the students themselves, and how best to praise and discipline them. The administration of the school tries to be as fair as possible, which includes having student representatives sit on the student evaluation committee. Marin's class this year of fourteen and fifteen year olds is no different than previous years, although the names and faces have changed. Marin tries to get through to his students, sometimes with success and sometimes resulting in utter failure. Even Marin has his breaking point, which may result in him doing things he would probably admit to himself are wrong. But after all is said and done, there is next year and another group of students.
Leave your thoughts about The Class.
| Houston ChronicleAmy BiancolliBy rough estimate, maybe 80 percent of the movie consists of these student-teacher slanging matches, but it's engrossing. |
| CinemaBlend.comKatey RichThe Class simply exists as it is, a dispatch from a familiar world that has still never seemed to real. |
| Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsThis is one of the screen's most rewarding explorations of the teacher/student relationship in any language. |
| Movie RetrieverBrian TallericoThere is some deeply moving material in The Class and those who enjoy realistic interplay between characters who blur the line between fiction and reality won't want to miss it. |
| NewsdayRafer GuzmanPowerful, mesmerizing and full of moments that linger long after the bell rings. |
| thelondonpaperStuart McGurkA satisfying prime antidote to surface-level cinema. |
| GuardianPeter BradshawFrench director Laurent Cantet does something miraculous with it in this fresh piece of humanist, realist, optimist cinema. |
| Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenThe keen observations of The Class ultimately become a remedial education in themselves. |
| Cinema em CenaPablo VillaçaAposta na ambigüidade e na sensação de estarmos acompanhando os fatos à medida que estes se desenrolam num ambiente de improviso que sempre valoriza o acaso. |
| culturevulture.netBeverly BerningAt the heart of The Class is an exciting rapport between a teacher and his students, one in which language and ideas are constantly being tossed about and questioned. |