Miss Violet is a historical drama about the challenges of setting up compulsory schooling for children in a society resistant to change

Reading Time: 5 minutes

After his film Delicious about the first restaurant, director Éric Besnard brings us Miss Violet about a French female teacher sent to a tiny village in the French countryside to set up a compulsory, secular, and free school for the Republic.

It’s 1889 and Parisian Louise Violet (Alexandra Lamy) is sent to a tiny French village to impose the Republic’s free, compulsory and secular school system. This mission does not make her popular with either the children or their parents. If the children go to school, that’s less people on the fields. The parents also worry that their children might leave the village if they know more than their parents. The women are judgemental of Louise Violet’s appearance, dress, and grooming.

For Louise Violet, education is about giving the children a choice – it gives them options to choose from. She is concerned for them and for the future. She views their working on the fields as slavery, and considers education as a way toward a better society.

It’s a period in which being born from the neighbouring village makes you a foreigner, something that Jérémy Lopez’s character Remi contends with. So, coming from Paris with different clothes, attitude and ideas is bound to ruffle some feathers.

When no one shows up on the first day of school, Louise asks Jospeh (Grégory Gadebois, Delicious, A Good Friend, Maria into Life), the Mayor of the village to compel them to come, or threatens to call the gendarmerie to report the non-attendance. He warns that that would only make her an enemy. His mother Marthe (Annie Mercier) persuades him to help Louise and so he accompanies her to the villagers’ houses in the hope that introducing herself and listening to their concerns about the schooling might get them on board.

Miss Violet © Nord-Ouest Films – STUDIOCANAL – Apollo Films – France 3 Cinéma – Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma – Artémis Productions — © Nord-Ouest Films – STUDIOCANAL – Apollo Films – France 3 Cinéma – Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma – Artémis Productions

Louise continues to struggle to get every child into her classroom, facing lingering resistance from the villagers who remain wary of change. At the same time, she is privately haunted by a painful secret from her past, a burden that threatens to overshadow her unwavering commitment to education and progress.

The film isn’t entirely serious. It weaves in moments of humour, such as the town’s nosy postman, Thermidor (Jérôme Kircher, Last Summer, AFFFF 2024) who reads everyone’s mail yet insists with a straight face that “le courrier, c’est sacré” (the mail is sacred).

Director Éric Besnard says that all of his films have the same message:

All my films say the same thing. It’s about trusting life and trusting other people. The solution lies in meeting the other in his or her difference. The other means someone of a different sex, from a different geographical area, with a different way of thinking. The art of conversation has never been about imposing your point of view, but about listening to the other person’s and being able to change your opinion. This is exactly what the meeting between this teacher and these farmers symbolises. They are all right in their point of view and nobody is wrong, but from this confrontation something important emerges: the freedom of choice offered to the children.

However, Gregory Gadebois appears to be typecast into the role of a gruff single man who is unlucky in love and has had some sort of emotional trauma that he’s not completely recovered from. In Delicious, he had given up cooking after being ridiculed by the Duke of Chamfort and his friends, and it is Louise who begs to be his apprentice, and that he ultimately falls for. In A Great Friend, Gadebois plays Pierre, a recluse, shut off from the world, and not particularly friendly, who has feelings for former sister-in-law who is now widowed but doesn’t know how to act on them. Both these films are from Éric Besnard, the same director as Miss Violet and Besnard says he wrote Gadebois’ role in Miss Violet for him. Although he is very good at performing these similar roles, equally in Miss Violet. It would be nice to see Gadebois play a different character.

Alexandra Lamy gives a compelling performance as the valiant Louise Violet. She convincingly conveys both her passion for teaching her students and the quiet anguish of a past that still haunts her. While the runtime is a modest 1h48, the film’s pacing creates a sense of sluggishness, with moments that could have been tighter or more engaging.

Miss Violet is a poignant and inspiring drama about resilience, education, and progress. Featuring powerful performances from Alexandra Lamy and Grégory Gadebois, the film is worth watching for fans of period films, historical events, and stories of perseverance and personal growth.

3.5 CROISSANTS

Matilda Marseillaise watched a screener of the film.

Miss Violet was released in France under the title Louise Violet in November 2024.

KEY INFO FOR THE ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE FILM FESTIVAL 2025

WHAT: Alliance Française French Film Festival 2025

WHERE & WHEN:

19/03 – 23/04 – ADELAIDE
06/03 – 08/04 – BRISBANE
06/03 – 02/04 – BALLARAT, VIC
08/03 – 02/04 – BALLINA, NSW
11/03 – 13/03 – BENDIGO, VIC
07/03 – 02/04 – BYRON BAY, NSW
06/03 – 09/04 – CANBERRA
25/03 – 15/04 – GOLD COAST
03/04 – 13/04 – HOBART
05/03 – 09/04 – MELBOURNE
03/04 – 06/04 – MOUNT GAMBIER, SA
13/03 – 16/04 – PERTH
26/03 – 31/03 – RENMARK, SA
04/03 – 09/04 – SYDNEY
02/04 – 09/04 – VICTOR HARBOR, SA
04/03 – 06/04 – PARRAMATTA, NSW
10/04 – 13/04 – BUNBURY, WA
12/04 – 21/04 – WARRAWONG, NSW