4/5

Review by John P. Harvey.

Michele (Antonio Albanese) has finally been granted his wish for a transfer from his city school in Rome to a country school, where he can live a real life.  His transfer is to the
remote, frequently snowbound mountain village of Lupe, within the Abruzzo wildlife reserve.  It is, in the words of the locals, a world apart.  There, he will teach a class of just seven pupils, combining first, third, and fifth grades.

The school’s principal, Agnese (Virginia Raffaele), isn’t sure that Michele is up to the task.  And the inadequacy of Michele’s clothing is enough to tip off all the locals: Michele is a city boy with rustic ideals.  Casually dismissive about it, nobody expects him to last long.  Michele’s passion for the country is genuine, though, and he quickly adapts to the village’s mountain ways.

No sooner has he settled in than the news arrives that the village’s school will be permanently closed unless it can attract four additional students within two weeks.  Closure of the school would lead to eventual abandonment of the village.  And the principal of the next town’s school is doing all he can to ensure that Lupe’s school closes so that he can take its present students.  How cunning can Agnese and Michele get in order to drum up the additional pupils?

A World Apart touches on several pressures and anxieties arising from the threat of closure, but it more fundamentally concerns the shared humanity that teacher, principal, students, and parents bring to their common problem; and the film’s more serious moments are beautifully balanced by its gently comedic ones.  Such moments relying less on highlighting incompetence or inadequacy than on featuring surprising moral courage, the film brings the viewer to bask in the joy and wonders that may emerge from spirited cooperation to sidestep bureaucracy.  On a sidenote: the film’s child characters and most of its adult ones are played by first-time actors living within a couple of hours’ drive of the film’s location, Lupe — and they play their roles to perfection.

This film is a treat for the whole family.

Screening at Palace cinemas.