"The Chorus" (2004)

(Originally released as Les Choristes)

Starring: Gérard Jugnot, François Berléand, Kad Merad, Jean-Paul Bonnaire, Marie Bunuel

First, the lowdown: A prefect at a boarding school disciplines his charges through music.

What is it about foreign cinema where they can take a stale genre picture and breathe life into it? The Chorus is a remake of an earlier French film, La Cage Aux Rossignols, and the consensus is that it’s improved upon that film in many respects.

Clément is a former music teacher who has been hired as a boarding school prefect. The year is 1949, and many of the students are indirect victims from World War II. (One student, Pépinot, had lost his parents during the occupation.) Nobody wants to be there: the boys don’t, the teachers don’t, and the headmaster certainly doesn’t. Clément is happy to have a job, however, and is undeterred by the boy’s lack of discipline.

Rachin, the headmaster’s philosophy of order is reduced to a single phrase: “action/reaction.” This attitude is demonstrated when Clément arrives: the groundskeeper Maxence is injured from a student prank, when no one comes forward about it, Rachin tells Clément to pick a boy at random to punish (being new, Clément won’t have any existing prejudices.)

Clément does not like the abusive manner in which Rachin enforces his policies, but knows that the boys’ misdeeds cannot go unpunished. After tracking down the true culprit behind Maxence’s injury, Clément negotiates to have the boy be Maxence’s aide until he recovers. In exchange, Clément vows to keep the matter from Rachin. Word spreads quickly, and the boys find themselves unsure: this is the first time a teacher had treated them like adults instead of miscreants.

One evening, before bedtime, Clément catches the boys chanting an insulting ditty about him in their dormitory. Becoming inspired, Clément begins teaching his students how to sing and assembles them as a choir. Now having a means to express themselves, the students act out against their superiors less and less. One student in particular, Morhange, proves to be a gifted soprano, even though he is embarrassed by his talent.

If the plot sounds familiar (music instructor takes a group of ruffians and turns them in to the greatest children’s choir ever) it’s because you’ve seen it a million times before. But here it looks entirely original, and rarely comes off as being too sugary. One way that this movie excels beyond it’s American counterparts is that all of the characters are three-dimensional, not just the ones with the most screen time.

Line of the movie: “Is there a truth sweeter than hope?”

Four and a half stars. If your back is slouchy, your face looks grouchy.