The Oscar-nominated melo-drama The Chorus by Christophe Barratier is the Ferrero Rocher of borstal movies. I didn’t realise the French had such a sweet tooth for the agonies of adolescence, or a taste for the brutal certainties of 1949. The uncanny luck of this first-time feature director is the Kleenex case his film makes for forgiveness, while scratching a topical sore that has irritated parents for years. The Chorus addresses the thorny issue of discipline and delinquency by sweeping the arguments back to the past. It’s easier to emote about youth from a sensible distance. Gérard Jugnot is a kindly Bob Hoskins lookalike and the new supervisor of a boarding school for tough kids. The staff are basically prison wardens, and the prep-school-aged children are artful dodgers. The headmaster, Rachin (a wonderful death-camp sadist played by François Berléand), treats the staff with the same belting contempt as he does his pupils.

The bald and plump Jugnot is the closest these children will ever get to Mary Poppins. He’s a closet composer, an unlikely ally in the dormitory, and far wittier than his cynical pupils and jealous peers. This, despite the usual iniquities heaped upon his head. Within weeks Jugnot turns his motley charges into a pitch-perfect choir who can tweak tears out of stones. The responsibility nearly kills him, as much as the unexpected success. The angel soprano is Jean-Baptiste Maunier, a soloist with limpid, dewy eyes, a blonde mop of hair, a list of peevish crimes, and a longer face.

It’s a moot bone of contention whether Jugnot is more infatuated with the boy or his struggling waitress of a mother. The film wrestles weakly with the point. The chemistry has everything to do with the melting of hard hearts. The sentiment, I’m afraid to say, is quite excruciating.

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