‘The Marching Band’ Review: A Finely Tuned French Crowdpleaser

“The Marching Band” blasts through more story in its first 12 minutes than many films now manage in two hours. In those first 720 seconds we meet Thibaut (Benjamin Lavernhe), a well-heeled classical music conductor in Paris, who discovers that he will need to find a blood marrow transplant as he has leukemia; he learns that his sister is not a match, as he was adopted; he then discovers a biological brother, Jimmy (Pierre Lottin), who was not adopted and still lives in a disadvantaged working-class community in the north of France; he asks his new-found brother to help him, and Jimmy accepts.

That concision is evident in an almost brutally economical edit and in sharp, precise writing which provides narrative elements and deftly sketches character before moving busily on. Just as a marching band keeps time with its feet, so “The Marching Band” strides on, hitting the requisite notes and paying attention to the melody, sure, but especially making sure to hold the beat and keep the show on the road. This attention to rhythm helps director Emmanuel Courcol‘s film to stay true as it navigates some rather rocky terrain, for it is at once a mismatched buddy movie, a socially conscious crowdpleaser in the vein of, say, “The Full Monty,” and a sophisticated psychological drama à la française.

That the film mostly pulls this off is testament to its formal precision and to a central pairing of actors, in Lavernhe and Lottin, who manage to find subtlety where broad strokes would seem to be called for. More than two years after its Cannes premiere, “The Marching Band” opens theatrically in the U.S. this week through Greenwich Entertainment.

Once the film has dispatched its initial premise — the leukemia storyline is essentially a MacGuffin, and soon disappears for a sizable stretch — it can get down to the business of developing a bond between the characters, and establishing its (gentle) social critique. Jimmy, who works as a cook in a canteen, has a musical gift, which throws into sharp relief the different chances both men have been given in life. A scene in which this terse, withdrawn young man is revealed to have perfect pitch is typical of “The Marching Band’s” best qualities in its appealing first hour or so: Thibaut asks his brother to identify the sounds of a honking car or a barking dog, and Jimmy shyly names the correct chords. That pertness should be unbearable, but the scene is written in a minor key and performed by both actors to match, favouring eye contact and murmurs; the sheer brevity prevents it from becoming gloopy or crass.

The casting of Lavernhe and Lottin is particularly inspired, as the two performers bring an affect to these characters that mimics the story’s dynamic. Lavernhe, credited as “Benjamin Lavernhe de la Comédie-Française,” comes from a background in classical theatre, and performs his role with worldly elegance; Lottin, meanwhile, is a veteran of the popular comedy franchise “Les Tuche”, centering on a working-class family from the north of France. These sensibilities come together in the film’s tight dialogue, as when the two men meet and Thibaut introduces himself: “My name is Thibaut Desormeaux, and two weeks ago I learned I have leukemia…” Jimmy: “Ah, shit.” Thibaut: “Yes.”

Lottin is particularly intelligent in articulating Jimmy’s shame at his lack of means and achievement, inflected with pride and a lightly worn resentment that comes out in bursts of passive-aggressive joshing; meanwhile, Lavernhe deftly portrays the well-meaning and likable Thibaut as, conversely, insufficiently ashamed of his good fortune, at least early on: This smooth Parisian bobo does not even perceive how he flaunts his wealth and education.

In parallel, “The Marching Band” depicts a working-class community struggling with poverty and unemployment, for whom the musical collective — in which Jimmy plays the trombone, alongside his on-off girlfriend Sabrina (Sarah Suco) — has become a lifeline. Thibaut becomes involved, but will he be able to save the band from ruin? Here, the film closely mirrors the 1996 British comedy “Brassed Off,” making it a dead cert that we’ll eventually get a barn-burning finale showing the federating power of music in adversity.

Revealing how that comes about would enter spoiler territory, but saying that it happens at all is germane, as it shows that the film finally falls victim to formula. In these pre-ordained moments — a surfeit of montages, an artificial falling-out between the brothers, the occasional dip into the saccharine — “The Marching Band” becomes a touch pleased with itself. The formula works (and the film has the domestic box-office receipts to prove it), but it detracts somewhat from the project’s smarts elsewhere.

In a well-presented technical package, plaudits should go to editor Guerric Catala for a cut that attempts to shun sentiment, and to Christel Birot for costumes that smartly outline both character and class differences via the means of double denim or a freshly pressed felted overshirt. The music department, as well as Courcol’s lively directing and writing, must be commended for scenes of the brass ensemble playing and rehearsing, in a constantly dynamic interaction with dialogue. The zippy soundtrack, much like the film itself, veers between surprisingly choice cuts (the aching “I Remember Clifford” by Lee Morgan) and rabble-rousing crowdpleasers (Dalida, or the overture from “Aida”). Ravel’s “Bolero,” which repeats the same phrase over and over again but with tonal differences each time, also features.