School of Life

Paul, an orphan who has known nothing but Paris in the twenties, is sent to Sologne to live beside a count's estate with Célestine, the gamekeeper's wife. To a boy who knows only the city the forest is entirely foreign, and the person who teaches him to read it is not a schoolmaster but Totoche, the local poacher. Nicolas Vanier adapted his own novel and shot the whole thing in Sologne, the region he grew up in. The old enmity between poacher and gamekeeper is the story's skeleton, and Paul's real history surfaces at the end. François Cluzet plays Totoche. The nature photography is the strongest thing in it, which is no accident: Vanier began his career making wildlife documentaries. Who it is for: viewers who like childhood stories set in the countryside and traditional French family films. Who it is not for: anyone wanting restraint, since the film opens its hand toward the end.