L'atelier

The French film, "The Workshop", is a difficult film for me to review. On one hand, I appreciated that it dared to address some important social issues facing the country and many other countries. But, on the other, the message seems confusing and will likely leave many viewers wondering what the picture was trying to say…or, if it was trying to say anything at all.

The story is set in a small town which is experiencing hard times. The local shipyard was closed long ago and there is a sense of malaise over the place. Because of this, it's surprising that a published author like Olivia (Marina Fois) would come all the way here to teach a summer course on creative writing. Seven students have signed up for the class and its freestyle structure leads to these young adults revealing who they are and what they think during the discussions. Several of the students are defensive because they are Muslims and the class is working on a murder mystery…and they don't want the characters or story to come off as anti-Muslim. But one of the students, a loner named Antoine (Matthieu Lucci) seems to take pleasure out of baiting his fellow students and bucking the group-think that has been established in the class. Over time, Olivia begins to worry that Antoine actually might harbor real fantasies of murder…and his social media account and that of his friends seem to indicate this is a real possibility. The story, at this point, is pretty interesting and I was hooked. Unfortunately, the teacher's actions and Antoine's from this point on are unpredictable, often confusing and really left me wondering what the message was supposed to be in the picture. In other words, it all seemed to fall apart at the end and left some of the viewers baffled. It's all a shame, as there really are some interesting story elements and it could have been better.

Laurent Canter, the director, is mainly known for "Entre les murs". The start of this movie makes us think we will watch something similar. Instead of a class of teenagers, a workshop, with young adult. However, instead of describing the relationship between the members - one of the things he does best, Laurent Cantet focuses this time on one of the workshop participant and make this movie a social thriller. That young man is indeed disturbing for everybody - and quite disturbed.

Some scenes are working well, and we cannot deny that an artist trying not to repeat itself is a good thing. However the best scenes in my opinion still are the group scenes and the combination of thriller and social movie does not intertwin always completely and are sometimes working againts each other (the thriller loosened by the social part and vice versa).

The social topics are really topical, and relevant, and addresses quite well the issues young underprivileged women and men can meet in our society. It doesn't bring answers, it shows. It makes it possible for the spectator to try the different shoes the movie's characters are. In that regard, the movie is a success.

The storyline concerns a successful novelist who is hired to come to a French town experiencing a post shipbuilding industrial decline to give a workshop to a half dozen young adults (late teens/early 20s) on developing writing/creative thinking skills. Not clear if it's to help develop the youth's futures, or to become writers, or learn cooperative skills, or become well adjusted. The author encourages them to "Do research to make your fiction more real." Good potential for some insight on writing, but what we get for the movie is a lot of immature antagonistic aggressive back and forth from the group which leads me to believe the movie is more about exposing the differences amongst them (racial, gender, religious, political). Some cooperative understanding did surface, but a lot was left unclear which probably mirrors life.

I think this film is trying to to make a contrast between slick, unreal thrillers and reality. I get a sense of the storyline at the end being improvised so that I never knew what might happen. I was impressed but it wasn't my normal type of film, hence a 7 but could have been 8.

Although I did like the scenes of the main character swimming, I don't know that they were necessary. The other students in the workshop could have been more involved, instead they acted like they were bored, there were possibilities missed for conflict that could have deepened the plot. Overall, I liked the film, it was a view into French life that you don't often see.

The movie begins in a small town, at a writing course, with creating an exceptionally realistic atmosphere surrounding French youth of different backgrounds and mindsets, with the addition of a cosmopolitan writer from Paris who is their course instructor. All actors give natural and brilliant performances. Then the movie focuses more and more on one French guy with far-right associations and the instructor. Very well done character study in my opinion. The thrilling turn the second half takes surprised me and the ending satisfied me. Not a typical big screen movie but I think it would be very watchable for most viewers.