MELODY MAKERS

REVIEWED - THE CHORUS/LES CHORISTES: There is a distinct whiff of déjà vu about the storyline for The Chorus, and not just because it's based on the screenplay for a 1945 French movie, La Cage aux Rossignols, writes Michael Dwyer

Both follow that familiar narrative arc of unconventional but inspirational teachers transforming troubled teens - despite the obstructions of cold-hearted authority figures - in movies from Goodbye Mr Chips, Going My Way, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and To Sir, With Love to the more recent Dead Poets Society, Mr Holland's Opus, Mona Lisa Smile and Song for a Raggy Boy.

Jacques Perrin, who produced Les Choristes, doubles as an actor in the present-day opening sequence, playing an internationally renowned conductor prompted to reflect on the experiences that moulded him in childhood.

Cue an extended flashback to provincial France in 1949, when a well-intentioned, balding and unmarried teacher (Gérard Jugnot) takes up a post at an austere institution for boys. The headmaster (François Berléand) is a callous disciplinarian impervious to the needs of his charges, some of them orphans who lost their parents in the war, and so stingy that he refuses to call a doctor when the school caretaker injures his eye.

The mischievous behaviour of the boys sets up some entertaining comic moments, but a darker tone underlies the material as one boy commits suicide and another, the oldest, displays a nasty, violent streak.

It comes as no surprise whatsoever when the mild-mannered new teacher dares to rock the boat, refusing to conform to the institution's harsh regime and introducing the boys to the freedom and joy of music. One persistent troublemaker (Jean-Baptiste Maunier) not only has the voice of an angel but also a beautiful single mother who cannot afford to keep him.

For all its familiarity and predictability, The Chorus exerts an irresistible charm. Making an impressive feature film debut, writer-director Christophe Barratier, a classically trained musician, eschews all the easiest options offered by the movie's scenario, and his film is buoyed by delightfully natural performances and, as there must be, heavenly voices.