Recensioni de* critic*

Far from feeling claustrophobic, The Class benefits from such unswerving focus as Cantet’s roving cameras move hungrily amongst the students and teacher, always ready to pounce on a particularly dynamic exchange, an unexpected action, or any sudden drift

What makes this so watchable is the realistic interaction of the young students, the glances, the giggles, the slang... It is also a highly topical film, dealing with issues of integration and what it means nowadays to be French.

"The Class" breaks the Hollywood template by showing how progress with students isn't linear, that failure can follow success, that some kids can't be reached, and that other kids, who could have been reached, sometimes fall through the cracks.

The movie is bursting with life, energy, fears, frustrations and the quick laughter of a classroom hungry for relief.

The premise that all life is high school has never seemed as scarily true and oddly hopeful then it does here. Fierce, funny and moving, The Class graduates with honors.

These kids’ ability to create real characters, sometimes reflecting their own personalities, sometimes not, is part of what makes “The Class” the success that it is.

The beauty of The Class is that it puts the lie to the one-teacher-can-make-a-difference myth propagated by so many other films; Bégaudeau may well have an impact on his students, but he and the film have the wisdom to understand that some kids can't be reached, and teachers often find that cultural or bureaucratic conditions leave their hands tied.

If you’ve ever sat in a classroom (or stood in front of one), if you’re interested in thinking about race, social class, language, loyalty, work—oh, let’s just say life—this unassuming movie will nail you to your seat.

For anyone who loves language, this cut-and-thrust is a heady delight, so rich and free-flowing in its rhythms that it’s hard to decide whether what we’re seeing is a vérité-style documentary or a realist drama.

In all, “The Class” is a prime document of French post-colonial blues, though its relevance to American urban education could not be any greater if it had been made in the Bronx or Trenton or South Los Angeles. I would be surprised if this brilliant and touching film didn’t become required viewing for teachers all over the United States. Everyone else should see it as well—it’s a wonderful movie.

"The Class" is a fictional narrative woven from threads of real life, and it sometimes feels more true to life than any strict documentary could.

Here Mr. Cantet whose earlier features include “Human Resources” and “Time Out,” two other dramas about systems of power has done that rarest of things in movies about children: He has allowed them to talk.