School Life

School Life (La Vie scolaire, 2019) is a French drama-comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Directors Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade drew on their own time working in a Seine-Saint-Denis high school to make this film: Samia (Zita Hanrot), a young assistant principal, takes a post in one of Paris's most underfunded districts and walks straight into a class of teenagers whose problems don't stop at the school gate.

One student is skipping because of trouble at home. Another plays the class clown as armor. A third carries the weight of a failing younger sibling. Samia listens to all of them — and tries to keep herself together at the same time. The cast pulls heavily from real local teenagers, and that decision pays off: the film feels lived-in rather than scripted, which is where most inspirational school stories fall apart.

No major awards circuit, but La Vie scolaire was one of the most commercially successful French releases of 2019 — audiences connected with it on their own terms. Watch School Life (2019) online on iFILM.