Première année // The Freshmen (2018)
- Thread starter FreedMind
- Start date
Ah, man.
I enjoyed the movie, but I totally understand the middling reviews that I saw beforehand.
The film is centered around two guys preparing to take an exam for med school. I guess the system in France is slightly different the one in the US. In France, if you wish to go into med school, you have to take an exam. You are given a rank based on your test score, and this rank determines when you get to declare your area of study (for example, #1 student picks first, while the #254th rank student has to wait for everyone else to pick.) Your position is crucial, because each area of study only has a certain amount of students they can admit into their program. For example, medicine has 200 dentistry has xx and etc. Once a program is full, you have to either withdraw and try to take the test again, or go into another program with available space. So if you're #201, but the 200 spots in medicine are full, you either have to enroll in another program or withdraw.
Anyways, the movie has a runtime of an hour and a half, which flew by for me. I felt that they did a great job of capturing the grind of studying for an impending final exam, and in that sense, this film felt slightly more mature than a regular coming of age or "college" story.
The protagonists are easy to root for, but are perhaps too bland. I didn't think the movie was boring, but it certainly felt too condensed. Characters have just enough of a story to make them relatable, but not necessarily memorable. Pivotal scenes often feel like sticky notes protruding from your textbook; you're only supposed to quickly absorb and memorize the material, not actually understand it. For example, one of the characters actually has a public break down only to return back to studying for the exam without much of an exploration of his recovery, or even of how he ended up at the hospital.
For the sake of telling a story that takes place over the course of a semester, it's convenient. However, it ends up turning the movie into a run of the mill story of the med school exam in France, and this is solidified even further with its predictable happy ending.
Concepts like stress, friendship and family are pushed aside for the exam, which leaves us with a sort of shallow movie. I suppose it saves us some melodrama though.
It certainly got a boost by being shot in Paris though. I'd recommend it to anyone else who's a sucker for coming of age films. If it's on streaming, it's not bad at all, but I can't say that I'd recommend actually renting or buying it.
I enjoyed the movie, but I totally understand the middling reviews that I saw beforehand.
The film is centered around two guys preparing to take an exam for med school. I guess the system in France is slightly different the one in the US. In France, if you wish to go into med school, you have to take an exam. You are given a rank based on your test score, and this rank determines when you get to declare your area of study (for example, #1 student picks first, while the #254th rank student has to wait for everyone else to pick.) Your position is crucial, because each area of study only has a certain amount of students they can admit into their program. For example, medicine has 200 dentistry has xx and etc. Once a program is full, you have to either withdraw and try to take the test again, or go into another program with available space. So if you're #201, but the 200 spots in medicine are full, you either have to enroll in another program or withdraw.
Anyways, the movie has a runtime of an hour and a half, which flew by for me. I felt that they did a great job of capturing the grind of studying for an impending final exam, and in that sense, this film felt slightly more mature than a regular coming of age or "college" story.
The protagonists are easy to root for, but are perhaps too bland. I didn't think the movie was boring, but it certainly felt too condensed. Characters have just enough of a story to make them relatable, but not necessarily memorable. Pivotal scenes often feel like sticky notes protruding from your textbook; you're only supposed to quickly absorb and memorize the material, not actually understand it. For example, one of the characters actually has a public break down only to return back to studying for the exam without much of an exploration of his recovery, or even of how he ended up at the hospital.
For the sake of telling a story that takes place over the course of a semester, it's convenient. However, it ends up turning the movie into a run of the mill story of the med school exam in France, and this is solidified even further with its predictable happy ending.
Concepts like stress, friendship and family are pushed aside for the exam, which leaves us with a sort of shallow movie. I suppose it saves us some melodrama though.
It certainly got a boost by being shot in Paris though. I'd recommend it to anyone else who's a sucker for coming of age films. If it's on streaming, it's not bad at all, but I can't say that I'd recommend actually renting or buying it.
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