Mini-Review: The Class

The Class (Entre les Murs)
Directed by Laurent Cantet
Released December 19, 2008

France’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar competition is a quiet, simple tale of a junior high school classroom in Paris whose teacher, Mr. Marin (François Bégaudeau) isn’t content to sit back and watch his students put in minimal effort and disrespect him. It’s not a glaringly original story, and the promotional materials for the film try to emphasize the fact that this story is supposed to be true to life, utilizing improvisation and non-actors to play the students. It’s one of those movies that critics salivate over and after all the tremendous praise, there’s so little to get excited about (just like “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” at the beginning of this year). “The Class” has already earned the second-highest spot on Metacritic’s best-reviewed movies of the year, behind only “4 Months” (no surprise there). It doesn’t deserve all the praise because it’s simply not that good. Additionally, it’s sad that it was submitted over three much better French movies from this year: “I’ve Loved You So Long” and especially “A Christmas Tale” and “Tell No One.” It would be much better for those three movies to receive wider distribution and buzz over this sub-par and overrated movie. I can only hope that “Waltz with Bashir” can win the Oscar over this movie if they both get nominated (and because they’re probably the only two I’ll manage to see).

B-