PLOT: In the late 1940s in France, a new teacher at a repressive boarding school for misfits discovers that singing helps his adolescent pupils do better in life and have broader horizons, and all those good things.
The Chorus is a sweet-natured film about a teacher helping kids survive by organizing them into a choir. The film begins in present time. A famous conductor is going home to his mother's funeral. An old friend comes to visit, and brings with him a diary from a boarding school both men attended in their childhood.
It's a clumsy intro, but never mind. Now the story goes back in time to 1949 and to a school for orphans, delinquents, the illegitimate and the unwanted. Here is a new teacher (Gerard Jugnot), finding out that the students at the school are little monsters. Here is the stern and sadistic headmaster (Francois Berleand) and here are the misunderstood boys.
Our new teacher discovers that the boys are badly treated. With a bit of psych 101, some choral music and a few attempts to work with them instead of just smacking them around, he gets good results.
One child in particular has the teacher's attention. Pierre Morhange (Jean-Baptiste Maunier) is a boy with the face of an angel and the attitude of a criminal. The teacher discovers that the recalcitrant Pierre has a magnificent voice and a very beautiful mother; the voice makes the boy chorus scenes even more lovely and the pretty mom leads to a small subplot.
Other than that, The Chorus has one incorrigible child and one adorable orphan (Maxence Perrin) for balance. It is sweet to look at and delightful to listen to, but it's not exactly going to set your cinematic world on fire. Gerard Jugnot is earnest and believable in the role of the new teacher -- that lived-in face of his always helps -- and the children in the cast all manage very good performances.
The Chorus is essentially harmless -- entertaining, vaguely moving, good-hearted, full of celebration of potential and other positive things.
It's the sort of film to which you could safely bring granny or the children. So, obviously, it's not our sort of film at all, but -- it could be yours, couldn't it? Well, then.
(This film is rated PG)
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