Bad Seeds

A French film set in Paris. Wael is a small-time swindler. He works old people in the street and does it together with Monique. Monique found him in the street years ago. She effectively raised him and the two work like a family. One day they con the wrong person. She turns out to be a lawyer and offers Wael a choice: a complaint or a job. The job is at a school. There are eight pupils; all have been expelled from other schools and this is their last chance. Wael is to teach. From there the film is a story about a classroom. The children do not listen, the lessons do not work, and the man starts using his own methods. His method is swindling. Instead of teaching lessons he teaches tricks, sets up schemes, and turns the class into an operation. What the narrative is interested in is not education but belonging: both Wael and the children are people who have not been accepted anywhere, and the film tells them from the same place. The past cuts in. Wael's childhood is shown in pieces and a line about fleeing a war settles inside the narrative. Monique's line carries the emotional weight. She falls ill and Wael notices too late. The tone is light. The narrative carries heavy subjects with comedy and loses that balance in places. Kheiron, Catherine Deneuve, André Dussollier and Adil Dehbi are in the cast. Kheiron wrote, directed and stars. Who it is for: anyone who likes warm, optimistic French comedy. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; the class comes right, everyone heals, and the solutions arrive too fast.