This is a film about a school in a poor suburb of Paris. The humor, dialog and script is centered around issues that would only be understood in France so the film really has limited appeal. It really doesn't hold interest as it plays more like a low-budget docudrama.

I found this movie gripping from beginning to end. It creates a series of clearly developed and delineated characters who all attend or teach in a high school in one of the poor suburbs of Paris. The teachers, most of them, try to help the kids connect with their schooling in some way, though that isn't always easy. Some of the students are bright and could succeed, but have a lot of extra-curricular hurdles that keep getting in their way. Others just aren't meant for school.

These various threads are woven together by first-rate actors and directing, such that they never leave you looking at your watch. These become real people for you, and you want them - most of them, at any rate - to be able to succeed.

No one here is perfect. (You probably aren't either, if you really take a good look at yourself.) Still, most not just want something more out of life, but are willing to do something to earn it. You want them to succeed.

A typical portrait of how school looks like. I just can't relate too well since I am from Asia and students here are very much different. It also got me thinking is this the real situation in the suburban schools of France? I've seen also a lot of American Movies but I don't see misbehavior close to what is shown in this movie. Well, I guess, maybe this is just how liberated students in France are. Are they really?

Well, as a teacher, the movie is on point on how we really come up to decisions when it's all about giving sanctions to students. It always looks like we are having a board meeting.

Honestly, I didn't like the ending. It got me thinking, for real? the boy just stood up for himself and then tell everyone in the room about what he is and what he is not, and then ended up just like that the next school year? It leaves me hanging as to what has been the decision of the school as regards what the boy said? Did they just let it slip it off and then move on? Well, sadly, sometimes it is just what the school does.