I am a grammar school principal, and I got a special thrill out of this most charming film. The kids are marvelous, the movie has strong emotional resonance and the music is glorious.

The Chorus is an awesome movie with nice acting, a great storyline and an awesome soundtrack. Even if the plot is a bit cliché (a very good man makes the lives of delinquent boys better with art), it is still awesome and beautiful. The movie takes places in the '40s, a hard time for the world, and it's greatly recreated, everything, from the clothes to the buildings. The soundtrack is wonderful, and the best part is that you hear the songs all the time because it's an essential part of the plot. I don't understand the low ratings by the critics. I give it a 9/10 and I recommend this movie to everyone that has a heart, even a small one.… Expand

Yes, this film is often predictable, even cliched. But enough characters are engaging that you care about them and want to see how it all turns out. It was worth the two hours and the price of admission. Gallic charm in spite of the weaknesses.

Some critics like Lisa Schwartzbaum who usually gives A plus reviews to nearly everything uses this absolutely endearing and beguiling French film to dump on so she seems able to give a bad review, as she did with "Spanglish." This foreihn language film nominee for Best Picture was a spectacualr hit in France, and partially because of yet another magnificent score by the great Bruno Coulais, who wrote the music to "Himalaya" and "Winged Migration" this audience-pleaser is a winner!… Expand

This was a stunning and beautiful film, It was real, gritty and yet fragant and powerful. I cried and laughed. The haunting eyes of young Morhange/Jean-Baptiste Maunier and his gorgeous voice...as well as the pure joy of little Pepinot. Oh! I want to buy this on DVD to keep forever.

An Amelie-esque treat where you're transported to that stereotype Gallic era where life is in perpetual summer.

Like Coach Carter, but for music. It's much better if you watch it in french with subtitles. AMAZING! I loved the music! :)

This is a very special film that was a suprise choice for an Academy Award, but be rest assured a most deserving one. Sure it tugs on the heartstrings, is rather manaipulative and predictable...but so what.........wasn't the highly-celebrated "Cinema Paradiso," Dead Poets Society" and "Good Willing Hunting" the same in that regard? This little film has its heart in the right place, and the music is extraordinary.… Expand

Exceptionally done, the picture is inspiring and wonderful to watch. I guess you can say that all the right buttons are pushed.

The bittersweet sensibility of Trauffaut; nuanced, unlike it's American counterparts.

I loved it!

It was a good film.

Great family fare.

It's a great movie! Recomment everyone see it!

Gerard Jugnot, as a somewhat reluctant, fish-out-of-water supervisor hired at a corruptly run boys' school/reformatory shortly after World War II, is kind of a Gallic Bob Hoskins. He's a lot of fun to watch; his hangdog facial expressions and resigned responses to the students' misbehavior and the headmaster's ironfisted control over them comprise the most original and entertaining element of this trite addition to the century-old Inspirational Teacher movie genre. His eyes and jowls frequently seem to be asking, "How did I get into this?" or "What the hell am I doing here?"...questions that some filmgoers may well find themselves asking during this lackluster, sometimes achingly predictable warm bath. It's not at all a spoiler to relate that I almost instinctively knew that one of the most recalcitrant students would turn out to have the loveliest, most angelic singing voice in the chorus that Jugnot puts together, or that in a film like this in which only two women have speaking parts, at least one of them is going to turn out to be an unrequited love interest. What the equally by-the-book but surprisingly rousing Coach Carter has that this lacks is conviction and enthusiasm; if any classroom film desperately needed a big, pull-out-the-stops Mr. Holland's Opus finale, this does: instead we get a wispy bit of attempted poignancy that did nothing more than cause me to notice that many of these adolescents' writing skills are no better developed than those of Cliff Robertson's Charlie Gordon before he underwent his operation. (In all fairness to cowriter/director Christophe Barratier, maybe that's his point.) It's ironic that the same day I saw this I later watched a DVD of another film about how adults can influence teenagers for good or bad: the James Cagney/PatO'Brien/Humphrey Bogart golden oldie Angels With Dirty Faces, which director Michael Curtiz punched across with far more vitality and energy than The Chorus can dream of--and that one was released in 1938, for Pete's sake! Maybe I'm being unduly hard on The Chorus because, having sat through it, I can't believe that France picked it as its official Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee over Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement; I certainly have issues with Jeunet's fussily overelaborate structure, but at least his film was original and ambitious and really about something. If a full moon hits, and/or the religious fundamentalists have their way, and this beats The Sea Inside for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, it'll be the most utterly forgettable winner in that category since 1980's Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears. What? You say you've never heard of Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears? My point entirely!… Expand

Just one word: Pepinot!!!

This is a remarkable movie!

"The Chorus" is for pseudo-sophisticates, who share the wrongheaded notion that a picture like this French import is the antidote to mainstream domestic-studio fare; when in fact, they're actually watching a film that's equally unchallenging, equally banal. Faced with a true rebuke to contemporary Hollywood filmmaking such as Michael Haneke's "Cache"(the film that should�39;ve been France's entry in the 2005 Academy Awards), or Catherine Breillaut's uncompromising experiments in freeing explicit sex from the domain of porn-dom (that would be her entire oeuvre); they fidget, they sigh, they eventually leave their seats, unaware of their own dilettantism. "The Chorus" is about as challenging as a croissandwich from Jack (Jacques)-in-the-Box. The "Lord of the Flies"-like situation that greets Clement Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot) when he first steps into his classroom is too easily dispelled in too short a period of time. These troubled youths are transformed into choirboys with only the most rudimentary hitches along the way. It would've made for better drama if Clement Mathieu had rehabilitated the pyromaniac with song, instead of Morhange(Jean-Baptiste Maunier), who looks way too good-looking to be of any interest to us. With all that fresh meat running around, Fond de L'Etang is made conspicuous by being an orphanage lacking in any religious training. As a villian, Rachin(Francois Berleand), the belligerent school principal, is no match for a randy priest. Ultimately, "The Chorus" is hopelessly irrelevant. We need another "Magdalene Sisters", not "Mr. Holland's Opus".… Expand

Excellent movie! Don't listen to the critics - I thoroughly enjoyed this film. As an added bonus: if you're studying French (as I am), this is a fantastic aide. I've never understood this much French in my life. I believe it's due to the school children's age and the era in which the film is set (it's not riddled with current slang or expressions).