Le Plus beau métier du monde
1996 Comedy / Drama
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Summary
After an acrimonious divorce, Laurent Monier takes a teaching job in a problem area just
outside Paris so that he can be near to his children. He finds himself in the school
from Hell, where the teachers have no authority, the pupils run riot and the senior staff
have long given up trying to bring any notion of discipline into the classroom.
Monier is assigned the worst class in the school and his new pupils waste no time turning
his life into a nightmare. He immediately gets on the wrong side of Aziz, a tough
Arab boy whose brother, Ahmed, is the leader of a band of thuggish criminals. Before
long, Monier finds his life is scarcely worth living…
Review
Gérard Depardieu gives a typically robust performance in this surprisingly dark
black comedy about the trials and tribulations of being a schoolteacher in an inner city
school in Paris. Despite the simplistic ending (where all the problems are suddenly
and miraculously solved by a single piece of good fortune) the film does offer a fairly
convincing account of life in some rough multi-ethnic areas of France. The film
is well paced, the characters are well drawn (up to a point), and the mix of comedy and
dramatic tension generally works quite well. The scenes with Daniel Prévost
are by far the most memorable bits of the film, helping to compensate for the film’s
sillier moments. Overall, an entertaining film – albeit one which accurately
reflects some very depressing truths.
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