Same old song

Rating: 5/10 (21 October 2004)

Good cinematography, and the music integration is rather solid. Some nice staging too. And some nice acting, mainly from the children actually (strange).
But this is the same old song, "Teacher as Messiah" movie. Been there, seen that. The Dead Poets Society and the recent equally mushy one with Julia Roberts (don't remember the name) were enough for me. I' don't want this kind of stuff anymore, it gets annoying. And this is so manipulative. The screenplay gets rather awkward in many places, too.
And as usual with many french movies (before you call me names, I AM french so gimme a break), there is no cohesion at the acting level, each (adult) actor plays in a different movie. The school's manager is very poorly portrayed. Too many conventions, too many formulas. When will these french wannabe directors learn how to work with their actors?! Jeunet, Blier, Chatiliez, Leconte do understand this aspect of movie making. Marshall is promising. Nothing like that here. The director and the actors have a different partition in their hands. Except for the children.
Further, there are so many elements coming directly from "Amelie" (the music for example is VERY derivative) that it feels like being quite exploitative....
Oh, well, anyway, what was I expecting? I'll keep waiting for the real cool french stuff, Jeunet's next opus.