Sentiment in ‘The Chorus’ doesn’t reach slop

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In theaters

THE CHORUS, directed by Christopher Barratier, written by Barratier and Philippe Lopes-Curval, 97 minutes, PG-13. In French with English subtitles.

The Academy Award-nominated “The Chorus,” from first-time director Christopher Barratier, taps into one of the most sentimental of genres – the student-teacher melodrama – but not in ways that make you want to hurl from a saccharine overdose or throw boxes of Kleenex at the screen.

With its obvious parallels to “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “Dead Poets Society,” “Music of the Heart” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” among so many others, including the film that inspired it, 1945’s “La Cage aux Rossignols,” “The Chorus” could have been one of those nauseating, top-heavy tear-jerkers if the story hadn’t refused to push too hard to move us.

It’s sentimental, yes, but it’s not sentimental slop – always a blessing with this genre, which sometimes leans so heavily toward the heartwarming and maudlin, it can turn the screen purple if not kept in check.

For the most part, Barratier keeps it in check, beginning his movie in the present with Pierre (Jacques Perrin) and Pepinot (Didier Flamand), two elderly men reminiscing about their childhoods at Fond de l’Etang – the school for troubled boys at which they were unwilling students – before flashing back to 1949 France, when they were students.

Here, we meet the man who changed their lives – Clement Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot), a beleaguered teacher hired by the unforgiving headmaster Rachine (Francois Berleand) to teach a handful of unruly boys who want nothing to do with him.

From the start, Clement realizes that while World War II might be over, he has nevertheless entered a war zone. These kids are monsters – and why shouldn’t they be? The verbal and physical abuse they suffer daily at the hands of Rachine and his henchmen is intolerable.

For them, the good news is that Clement isn’t so quick to punish. This cool man with the thinning hair and the unrealized music career is determined to set things straight with his own youthful failings before these boys leave their youth. He’s going to reach them and he’s going to do so through music.

On paper, all of this sounds grotesquely formulaic, and I suppose it is – on paper. But “The Chorus” is meant to honor the French films made for families in the post-war era of the ’40s and ’50s. It’s inspired by them. As such, what it does right it does very right, indeed.

The film’s cast of professional and unknown actors are especially good, working with screenwriters Barratier and Philippe Lopes-Curval to deepen the predictable rhythms inherent in the genre. Moments are heavy-handed, particularly at the start, but the story and the characters resonate through the brie, particularly when Clement gradually introduces them to the power of song and their own soaring voices, which make for a soundtrack that can be pure – and purely haunting.

Grade: A-

Also on video and DVD

THE AVIATOR, directed by Martin Scorsese, written by John Logan, 169 minutes, rated PG-13.

Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” a hugely entertaining biopic of the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio), combines drama, action and comedy into such a compelling form, it lights the screen as if from within.

Spanning 20 key years in Hughes’ life, the film is more concerned with capturing the essence of Hughes – his tight-fisted energy, the obsessive compulsive disorder that eventually gripped him – than offering deeper insights into the man, who remains here an enigma.

It begins with a snapshot of Hughes in childhood, when

he inherited his father’s fortune, and then plunges with a flourish into the heart of the story.

It moves through Hughes’ early years in Hollywood in the 1920s, when he struggled to film his war movie, “Hell’s Angels,” in spite of uncooperative weather conditions, millions of wasted dollars, and a shift in the industry from silent films to sound.

It follows his intense, complicated love affair with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett in a great, Academy Award-winning performance) in the 1930s, when he was trying to break the air speed record and, in the meantime, dealing with the love and

jealousy of a challenging woman.

It soars through the 1940s, when Hughes’ infamous fear of germs was beginning to sink him just as two men were working to do the same: Maine Sen. Owen Brewster (Alan Alda) and Pan Am’s Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin), who was using Brewster’s Washington muscle to prevent Hughes’ Trans World Airlines from becoming a competitive powerhouse in the international airways.

Some scenes are masterful, such as when Hughes and Brewster spar at the heated Brewster hearings; the decadent recreation of the parties at the Coconut Grove; the harrowing scene in which Hughes takes to the skies to film an aviation battle from “Hell’s Angels”; the sly moment in which Hughes first meets Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale); the scene in which Hughes woos Hepburn in a dreamy flight over Los Angeles.

The movie’s single best scene involves Hughes crashing a plane into the rooftops of Beverly Hills. At first, it’s played for comedy, but then Scorsese deftly turns it deadly serious. It’s just another moment to savor in a film filled with such moments.

Grade: A

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video/Dvd Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Alfie – C-

Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy – B+

ARE WE THERE YET? – D

Assault on Precinct 13 – C+

THE AVIATOR – A

Bad Education – A

Being Julia – B+

Birth – B+

Blade: Trinity – D

The Chorus – A-

Closer – B-

Collateral – B+

Cursed – C-

Darkness – D+

Elektra – C-

Ella Enchanted- B

Envy – D

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – A-

Exorcist: The Beginning – F

Finding Neverland – C

Flight Of The Phoenix – C-

House of Flying Daggers – A

The Incredibles – A

In Good Company – B+

King Arthur – B

Kinsey – A

Ladder 49 – B

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events – B-

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou – D+

Maria Full Of Grace – A

Meet the Fockers – C

Napoleon Dynamite – B+

National Treasure – C-