By the numbers

Rating: 5/10 (9 January 2006)

A middle-aged musician, Clement Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot), arrives at a boarding school for delinquent boys, Fond de l'Etang (Rock Bottom), with fear about his ability to handle the job of teacher and supervisor. His fears become even more real when he meets the overbearing headmaster Rachin (Francois Berleand), a man who takes out his frustrations by dolling out excessive punishments to the children. This is the premise of The Chorus (Les Choristes), a skillfully acted but by-the-numbers effort that fails to deliver any real emotional substance.
Mathieu discovers that some of the boys can sing very well, especially troublemaker Pierre Morhange (Jean-Baptiste Maunier) whose boy soprano voice has a purity that is almost angelic. The teacher pursues a relationship with Pierre's mother Violette (Marie Bunel) and encourages her to visit the school more often, but she falls in love with an engineer without considering Mathieu as a potential father for her son.
The teacher molds the delinquent boys into a heavenly choir (without a great deal of trial and error) and develops a positive relationship with most of them that demonstrates the redemptive power of music and further frustrates the surly headmaster. Although I did find The Chorus entertaining and truly enjoyed some gorgeous music, most of the characters are well-worn stereotypes and the film does not explore any possibilities beyond its tried and true formula.