The Workshop Dir: Laurent Cantet

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Starring: Marina Fois and Matthieu Lucci

Want your teenager out of their phone and into some current social debate? Then drag them along to this teen-centric thrilling war of words from the Palme d’Or winning director of The Class.

French actress and writer herself Marina Fois (Polisse) plays a novelist who teaches a writing workshop in the small seaside town of La Ciotat, getting a misfit group of teens to band together to write a murder mystery. But her attempts to help one right-wing teen might prove deadly.

Laurent Cantet echoes the equally racially-mixed discussion of ideas from his award-winning The Class, and his eighth film – which screened in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes – sees a return to intelligent and intense form.

The script, co-written with Robin Campillo (who also co-wrote fellow NIZFF film 120 Beats Per Minute), is a marvel. With no less than seven teenagers barking around a table, each of the overlapping voices is distinct and fleshed out, making you want to get to know each character even more.

What starts out as a cute thriller-within-a-thriller discussion – tossing around genre clichés and debating what makes a good whodunit – becomes an effective outlet for getting inside our characters – including a chilling and gripping story of bloodlust from our right-wing teen.

It’s the power of words, and our overactive imaginations, that really make this movie work. Each reading occurs with no soundtrack, with tension building slowly over each class as politically and racially charged insults are thrown.

Adding to the building tension is how easily our right-wing teen is taken into a band of like-minded friends, filming each other for Facebook disguised in mud shooting cans. The use of social media and online games adds another element to the social discussion too. The opening shot of a multiplayer fantasy game character practising his aim is repeated later with the teens casually taking mock target practice at refugees camped up nearby.

The diverse cast handle the subject matter well. They’re just like any other teenagers, glued to their phones, obsessed over their body image but they all have a depth beyond their years.

Cantet went on a wild casting spree across sports clubs, theatres bars and schools, whittling down hundreds to put 15 young people through their own workshop. Using a well-known actress like Marina Fois to ‘teach’ these unknowns in reality as well as in the movie works wonders.

The film an important account of the complex social climate youths in France, and even here, face.  You’d be smart to take your teens to this, it’s an accessible, intelligent and absorbing watch. What better way to raise discussion in the times of Trump?

Clayton Barnett (https://www.youtube.com/user/claymonster22/videos)

NZIFF LINK: https://www.nziff.co.nz/2017/auckland/the-workshop/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btfIP-Enk6s

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