A high school teacher loses it and ends up holding hostages half her class, turning the situation into a reflexive introspection on the various crisis of modern youths.

Isabelle Adjani, very pretty in her white skirt and blazer, and rolled-up sleeve holding "caids" at gunpoint, is unpredictable and convincing - the rest of the cast, amateur or not, is very weak.

The subject (education and equality) is strong, very relevant and more to-the-point than the very flat and bland take of the last Palmes d'Or "Entre les Murs".

La Journée de la Jupe takes it to another level, more brutal, more real and less entertaining. Less humor and more critical analysis.

The two weakness of the movie are the very feeble and bad acting on almost all the characters. And the overuse of Issues. During the hour and half, the movie feels obliged to tackle every single issues possible: from gang rape to condoms, from Islam to immigration, from respect to racism ... Too much. I was almost waiting to hear about Finance or the Ozone layer ....

Interesting subject but awkward construction.

A mix of "Entre les Murs" ("The Class"), Michael Douglas' "Falling down" and maybe "Negotiator" (2008), this gripping even if unlikely film stars Isabelle Adjani, showing she's a great actress, and Denis Podalydès as "Brigadier Labouret" , who doesn't have to show anything, as a cop with problems at home.

Everybody has an antagonist in life, his Salieri. In this case, our brigadier has Bechet, who wants swift action, "shoot first, think later", style. Labouret, maybe because he knows from experience how things can quickly get out of control, tries to help our beautiful heroine, Sonia Bergerac, a literature teacher in an underprivileged state high school. Isabelle Adjani being born outside France, it's clear why she chose to star this film, and some of her monologues when she's not out of control are of course her "message", like when she tries to educate her unruly pupils about the value of education, how they owe it to their struggling immigrant parents to achieve something for all they've left behind, and how life isn't that tough for students like them, but it's ruthless for those (foreigners) who don't.

The State is represented by Nathalie Besançon, (also playing a classy chief at TV series "Enquêtes réservées") always beautiful, but easily misled, and the school principal "Cauvin", a bureaucrat, like all of his kind, trying to save his skin above everything else.

This film will keep you glued to your seat, it would be a disaster on a lesser actress than Adjani. Unpredictable, out of control, "like an actor who has lost his plot" as others have written. My gripes are two: I would have liked a bit more of screen time to "Mouss", the violent bully, and his pal. What makes them be as they are? The same for the female pupils, or should I say victims, Farida and specially Nawel, Nathalie's unlikely ally, also with issues of her own. I also didn't believe in the feminist issues, like the film's title for instance, or Sonia's lecturing on how males and females differ in terms of attitudes towards them when they have sex. For a sophisticated Moliere teacher, I think this sounds too like pop psychology. I mean, is that her "reivindication" for the media, what Labouret asks her, doggedly, and mistakenly of course?

This is also a film that will keep you thinking. What would you do to engage this troubled, rowdy teens if you had to teach them anything? How do you think they'll fare in life? Farid wanting to keep his bonnett is just an example of a bigger issue. Is laicisim just a fancy word with a bunch of violent kids who want to be footballers, read People magazine and participate in TV shows? Sonia, no cultural relativist, (notice her surname, with heavy literary significance) pokes fun at her pupils's lack of intellectual ambitions, in a very "grand actor's" way. She starts by trying to give them the class she never could deliver. Like making them memorize the real and fake name of Moliere, etc. But later, she finally makes them participate in a sort of "Big brother" contest, among themselves, just showing she's beginning to engage the pupils using their codes and language, understanding the limits of XIX century "classical" education, specially to XXI century "fragmented" / postmodern pupils!

The use of classical music (Mozart) to highlight the contrast between it, the "traditional culture" and the "all to modern" world in which our teacher fights is a resource that has been used before, but is effective, nevertheless.

There are two IMDb reviews you might like to check: "ck_104 from Lebanon" called this film a "committed/ social thriller", I think you can't expect a better one. And "herve naudet", himself a pupil like the ones we see at this tough film, who writes that Adjani lives her parts, and plays with her guts. I agree with "nyc host" from France that: "this film is more to-the-point than the very flat and bland take of the last Palmes d'Or 'Entre les Murs' ". And probably with ghibliii from United Kingdom here: (Adjani) "looks way too luxurious and sophisticated for the social milieu"

Nevertheless, it's a very good film by actor and director Jean-Paul Lilienfeld. I'm looking forward to watching more films directed by him. My favourite scene is of course her monologue with red lighting, in the beginning of the film and then later, you'll understand why.

Enjoy and think about it!

PS: Not because it's obvious it's less true: Adjani is stunning in her classy white tailleur and boots with high heels. Angel's face, really. Life's unfair :).

Adjani, as high school teacher, attempts to hold a class on a Moliere's play in the school's small theater. As usual, she receives continuous intimidation, pressures and insults from chauvinist pupils. Then a scrum between irresponsible pupils lead to a gun accidentally falling down at the foot of Sonia. Taking it, she wounds by accident one in the leg, and then initiating an hostage taking. Outside the school, police and political try to react to the situation. Inside the building, using the gun Sonia requires from his students her own vision and finally try to place them in front of their own contradictions : in a real secular society one religion should not be replaced by another one under the pretext of cultural exchanges and social improvements . This film points a finger at the whole confusion in today Western schooled society. This film presents a current and realistic situation!