The Student

The Student (L'étudiante, 1988) — watch online on iFILM this French romantic comedy directed by Claude Pinoteau. Sophie Marceau plays Valérie, a twenty-one-year-old juggling private tutoring jobs with the all-consuming grind of preparing for the Sorbonne entrance exams. Her calendar has no gaps. Then she meets Ned.

Ned, played by Vincent Lindon, is a jazz musician who dreams of writing scores and keeps hours that are the exact opposite of hers. They are almost never awake at the same time, yet somehow the relationship refuses to stay convenient. Pinoteau keeps the tone easy — Paris light, precise comic timing, the kind of script that trusts its leads instead of pushing them toward big moments.

The payoff comes when Valérie sits down to write about Molière's The Misanthrope and realises she's been dissecting her own love life on paper without noticing. This is Marceau two films past La Boum and noticeably sharper — funnier, less polished, more interesting. Stream The Student (1988) online on iFILM.