Sean Penn and Natalie Portman -- With Class

By Steven Zeitchik

On a last-minute tip from a reviewer friend, we jammed in one final festival screening Saturday morning before catching a train out of Dodge. As luck would have it, it was one of the best movies we saw the entire fest. As Sean Penn would have it, it was the film that won the Palme d'Or.

There's already plenty of talk that, after years of being plagued by nepotism, the Cannes top prize finally means something again now that two highly praised and critically anointed films have won the prize in the last two years. (Romanian abortion drama "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" was the '07 winner.)

"The Class" is similar to that movie in some ways; it also takes on a topic of social relevance -- in this case, education and integration in modern-day Paris -- and, aided by some direct storytelling, gives it a dramatic shine.

"The Class" (or "Entre Les Murs") basically looks at one year in the life of a rough-and-tumble school -- specifically, at the French class of teacher Francois Begaudeau (who wrote the memoir on which the film is based and also plays the lead). Until the last section, it doesn't overdo the narrative peaks and valleys, just kind of follows the teachers and students through their daily paces. Think "Stand & Deliver" or "Dangerous Minds" without the Hollywood formula, or "Half Nelson" without the drugs.

Director Laurent Cantet bathes the film in a kind of white light, a bold visual choice that keeps the focus on the words and relationships instead of the run-down surroundings, as other movies of this ilk do. And unlike similar films, there's a lot of wordplay and quick verbal jibes in "The Class." A foreign-language film about language might seem like a doomed enterprise to a non-native audience, but there's humor and insight even if you're just reading the subtitles (which we were).

The movie is more accessible than "4 Months" and a lot easier to digest. But it's still a powerful work -- about race, language, adolescence and even justice.

Like other Cantet pics, it likely would have had U.S. distribution anyway. The Palme ensures that it will go for more money (and increases the chances it will get shut out of the Oscar foreign race; just ask "4 Months" helmer Christian Mungiu).

And maybe, it will ensure that all that talk about backscratching no longer has much to do with a Palme.

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