Bachir Lazhar (Fellag) is an Algerian refugee in Montreal seeking asylum. He takes a job in an elementary school after the previous teacher committed suicide. He and the children must come to terms with their respective traumas and grief and learn to let go and move on.
This is a sweet movie, despite its subject matter. I would have cheerfully killed for a teacher I thought got me in elementary school. The closest I ever got was the town librarians, but I digress. The movie tries to be sympathetic to the children as the adults around them fail to grasp the extent of their trauma and their resilience, and also show sympathy to the adults constrained by bureaucracy from offering any real comfort. This does sort of muddle the waters and I could see people wanting a firm villain, but I think it makes it more realistic. Everyone here is human and trying their best with the limited tools available to them.
It's not a fun watch but I think a lot of people are going to need to see expressions of grief and trauma as we start to come out of the pandemic and people start processing their experiences of loss.
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