A Real Job

A film set in a French secondary school. Benjamin was working on a doctorate. The thesis is not moving, he has no money, and he starts teaching temporarily. The first day is terrible. He goes into the class, nobody is quiet, and he leaves without teaching. The staff room is another world. The photocopier is broken, the coffee machine eats money, and everyone manages everyone else. Pierre teaches history. He has been at the same school for years; calm, sardonic, and showing the young ones the way. Sandrine gives too much of herself to the work. She deals with families, goes to pupils' homes, and wears herself down. From there the film spreads across a school year. Exams, parents' meetings, a disciplinary panel, a strike and a trip. Benjamin learns slowly. How to hold a class, how to use his voice, and when to step back. One pupil's line settles into the centre. What is happening at home shows at school, and there is very little the teachers can do. What the narrative is interested in is not education but a job: the film describes teaching not as a calling but as work with defined conditions; pay, posts, placement and burnout are discussed. The classroom scenes are crowded and loud. The narrative does not make the pupils charming; some of them really are difficult. The tone is balanced. The film is neither hopeless nor exalting; it moves through small gains. The director had previously made films about medicine; this tries the same method in another profession. Vincent Lacoste, François Cluzet, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Louise Bourgoin and William Lebghil are in the cast. Thomas Lilti directed and co-wrote. Who it is for: anyone who likes stories from inside a profession and realist French drama. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a strong plot; the narrative moves in episodes and some side lines are not completed.