School Life

End of June 2019, I saw this excellent film at a French premiere in the presence of the director Mehdi Idir and a few actors such as Liam Pierron and Moussa Mansaly, within UGC Parly, right next to Versailles, in the suburbs of Paris. Liam Pierron told us how he happened by chance to the rehearsals, accompanying a friend who was selected. No muss, no fuss ... he is at the top of the poster!

Second film directed by the duo Grand Corps Malade + Mehdi Idir, School Life (2019) is truly excellent: entertaining, truculent, deliberately caricatural, delicate, subtle, ... The co-directors give us an empathetic and tender look on a forgotten suburb. Moreover, Zita Hanrot and Liam Pierron are both awesome. Actually, the whole cast was skillfully elaborated in order to obtain a tiptop chemistry, with awesome supporting roles such as Farid (a hilarious teen suffering from mythomania), Dylan (a wacky monitor despite an inadequate IQ), a sports teacher with unorthodox activities, ...

As a synthesis: an excellent achievement. For sure, I will see their third movie, no matter what! 7/8 of 10

It looks somehow realistic not caricatural. I gave it 8 because while the dialogue reflects quite accurately the real-life in poor Paris suburbs, it is difficult for non-French citizens to understand and relate to the characters.

I'm generally a fan of series and movies that take place in schools or universities, probably because I belong to that age group myself. I have to say that I couldn't enjoy the movie flawlessly because I watched it spread over 3 days, but I am still very convinced by it.

The school life of these ghetto kids is brought across very realistically. Even if the dialogues are somewhat exaggerated due to the above-average use of Arabic words, the individual students and their behavior are very real. Everyone knows classmates who would behave like one or the other character in the film. The same goes for the teachers, who all have different characters.

I love movies that don't necessarily have a clear storyline, but just give the viewer the feeling of being there. We dive into the world of a socially deprived area and learn more and more about the backgrounds of the students and teachers. Of course, there is a lot of social criticism, but basically we as viewers just watch how school life develops in this French school.

However, the Characters come me partly a little too short because there are just too many and not all could be worked out very well. Furthermore, I miss the relationships between the individual students, unfortunately, we get almost only insights into the private lives of individual students whereby this class community vibe is lost. Towards the end it develops into a drama of a single student which I found a bit disappointing but still exciting and partly also emotional.

Good movie, and an inspirational one. But something that needs either more series in the story or a sequel. Just within these 2 hours it's hard to really develop into the characters lives aside from the main 2 and we are left with so much uncertainty and questions regarding many characters and what their future lies. Transitions are also very quick without us getting to know what exactly followed up or how the events proceeded. But tremendous feel good/emotional movie especially if you are into high school ones about struggle in different parts of the world.

Brilliant script that genuinely made me laugh out loud many times. The ending was a rushed but also that seemed to be on purpose too - detailing the reality of a school kids situation in Saint-Denis.