Film Notes

The Marching Band film review — Hollywood should watch and learn how to do this kind of feelgood movie.

Emmanuel Courcol’s deft French crowd-pleaser is a bittersweet, musical yarn of long-lost brothers, class and fate.

How does The Marching Band get it so right? As you read this, the global film business is massed in Cannes, pulling its hair out over Donald Trump and the industry’s general malaise. But not everyone will be glum. The makers of deft French crowd-pleaser The Marching Band had their premiere at last year’s festival. Over winter, it then became a domestic smash to the tune of €18mn (against a budget of €6mn). If all things must now come down to nationalist jostling, among the box office vanquished was Hollywood blockbuster musical Wicked. On its French opening weekend last December, it was beaten out by this bittersweet yarn of long-lost brothers, class and fate. Music is in the air here too. But in place of Broadway deafeners, The Marching Band has orchestral favourites and brassy riffs on French crooner Charles Aznavour. Warm and sure-footed, the film has the feel of a richly satisfying meal in an excellent neighbourhood bistro. Old world pleasures of character and story are generously apportioned. The first of the principals is Thibaut (Benjamin Lavernhe), a famous and urbane young classical conductor. Early in the film, he is diagnosed with leukaemia. But that hammer blow also brings revelation. In the search for a bone marrow donor, he learns he was adopted, with a brother he never knew existed: Jimmy (Pierre Lottin), a rough-edged canteen worker in scuffed northern small town Walincourt. A surprise reunion is followed by a transplant. Success. Thibaut is saved.  Obviously, you will now be writing an angry email about my having spoiled the entire film. Not guilty. In fact, all of the above is briskly wrapped up in the first 15 minutes. Director Emmanuel Courcol is just getting started. Life now comes fast at both siblings. Genetics harmonise. As Thibaut returns to his concert halls, Jimmy also proves a music lover, albeit in the less splendid surroundings of the Walincourt marching band, playing trombone on those Aznavour standards I mentioned. Benjamin Lavernhe plays a classical conductor in ‘The Marching Band’ Much plot ensues. The past is always present as Jimmy and Thibaut make sense of their new relationship, shadowed by their childhood separation and the wildly different lives it bound them for. The current moment is no less pressing, in a Walincourt where the newly shuttered local factory is the site of angry protests. Is it now a political statement to enjoy a French movie? Oh well. What remains of Hollywood should watch and learn how to do this kind of poignant, mainstream feelgood, with its messy family histories, social context, and colour pops of romance and comic high-jinks. So too British cinema, which once often made films like this, before making whatever it does now. The sheer sense of never-a-dull-moment asks a lot of the leads, who need to handle some abrupt tonal swerves. But Lavernhe and Lottin take everything in their stride. And if Courcol is no grand visual stylist, he clearly likes his characters — and us. The Marching Band is not a film afraid of a big crescendo. But no one on screen or in the audience is being talked down to. For all the broad strokes, there is also restraint at work. Honesty too. Characters are likeable but nobody’s perfect. Not every crisis has a fix. And though mostly the story goes precisely where you expect, at others, like a great song, the next note catches you wholly off-guard. And you find yourself singing along.

Danny Leigh, Financial Times, May 15 2025

The Marching Band review - what's the French for 'Brassed Off'?

Brothers suddenly united in blood kinship – and music.

Where there's brass: Jimmy (Pierre Lottin, left) and Thibault (Benjamin Lavernhe)©Thibault Grabherr - Vertigo/Playtime

In Emmanuel Courcol’s drama The Marching Band (En Fanfare in French, and also released as My Brother's Band), a struggling community band in a mining town in northern French has fallen on hard times. Elements of déjà vu, perhaps?

Certainly, if you're from Northern England. But rather than the romance of Mark Herman’s Brassed Off (1996), The Marching Band focuses on the relationship between two brothers (main picture).

One, from the high end of metropolitan culture, is orchestral conductor Thibaut Désormeaux (Benjamin Lavernhe). The other, from the hard slog of life in the dour surroundings of Hauts-de-France, is trombonist Jimmy Lecocq (Pierre Lottin, superb recently in François Ozon’s When Autumn Falls). The two are on great form and interact well. It is the brothers' evolving relationship that carries the film.

The unlikely pair  – separated at birth, each not knowing that the other existed – has been brought together by Thibaut’s sudden need for a bone marrow transplant. Sudden is the word: he collapses to the floor in mid-flow as he conducts a rehearsal of Beethoven’s Egmont overture, three minutes into the film.

Director Courcol has had success at the French box-office with this “feelgood with tears” film, and it has been nominated for seven César awards. It plays to interests of his that have had airings before. The juxtaposition of high culture and social realism was also present in Courcol’s The Big Hit (2020; Un Triomphe), in which prison inmates were let out to perform Waiting for Godot. Courcol says he's fascinated by the collision of true professionalism and good-natured amateurs "giving-it-a-go": “What I like above all is to reconcile opposites and find a form of compromise or balance.”

There is a touching scene in The Marching Band when Jimmy has a go at the blind audition for a position as a professional orchestral trombonist, not realising how high the expected standard is. There are also charming moments when Thibaut sets about trying to teach Jimmy how to conduct an orchestra, posing the question whether close relations teaching each other anything can ever be unproblematic.

Having noted a particularly fine performance in The Big Hit from Marina Hands, a stalwart and fully recognized "sociétaire" of the Comédie-Française, I was pleased to spot a return to the big screen after a long absence by her mother, Ludmila Mikaël, an actor who captivated French audiences and was an unassailable star of the theatre from the 1960s to the 1980s. Here, she plays Thibaut's mother, and the calm way she deals with a barrage of feelings from him is a masterclass, bringing back memories of her greatness.  

If Jimmy is prone to fits of righteous, hot-headed fury that makes his fists fly, it must be something in the water in this part of the world. As I watched him losing his temper and lashing out, I couldn’t help thinking the scene was quoting the fight between the rival pit men Chaval and Étienne in Émile Zola’s classic novel Germinal, set in the same mining region as The Marching Band. 

This twist highlights the film’s main weakness. Courcol set up the fascinating situation, the context, and the playground in which the characters co-exist, a space for social commentrary and the recognition of the value of art – where professional classical musicians and amateur community bands both have their place. Then he needed to push forward the narrative with realistic plot developments

Unfortunately, these moments sometimes feel far-fetched, contrived to say the least, and even occasionally borrowed. The sad melodramatic turn the story takes in the last 10 minutes feels like a particularly awkward roll of the dice. And it seems almost forgotten when the film reaches its Brassed Off-like ending, in which music triumphs over everything (in this case with Elgar switched for Ravel).

The Marching Band is flawed, then, but the deepening friendship between Thibaut and Jimmy makes it a compelling watch. nonetheless. 

 Sebastian Scotney, The Arts desk.com Thursday, 15 May 2025

What you thought about The Marching Band

Film Responses

Collated Response Comments

129 members and guests attended this screening.

We received 92 responses delivering a film score of 4.88 and a response rate of 71%. This is the greatest number of responses received and the highest response rate I have recorded. It is not the highest film score though. That belongs to Intouchables from 2012/13 with 4.99 and then The secret in their eyes from 2012/13 with 4.98.

Marching band ties with Woman at War from 2021/22 with 4.88.

Your observations are all collected below.

“I was feeling a bit weary when I set out from home tonight but am so glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed this film - including the sound and subtitles! It had everything: comedy, jeopardy, tension, compassion and told concisely and without mawkishness. Ten out of ten (although I'm only allowed 5!)”.

“The applause at the end of this movie said it all: there was laughter and tears, not just at the end but throughout this beautifully made film, the sort about ordinary people that the French do so well.  No sex, no violence, no car chases, none of the spoon-feeding so often seen in Hollywood productions.  The editing - showing only what was necessary, and crediting the audience with intelligence enough to fill the gaps - was exemplary, and the acting and direction excellent.  Take note, GFS selectors!”

“Gentle film exploring some interesting themes about nature vs nurture”.

“A wonderful film that was poignant, happy, sad and full of humour ... all presented with a delicate touch and a background of familiar classical music”

“I came braced for sentiment and I was not disappointed, the last act ramping up the stakes dramatically in a manner that is at once as nakedly manipulative as any Hollywood heart wrencher as it is emotionally satisfying. A manly tear was shed. The feeling is of having been gulled by the most charming of conmen. What precedes this is a very nicely played piece, the players likeable, the plot brisk, the emotion balanced nicely with humour. That the music is given as much space and serious consideration as it gives the movie weight. I can't help feeling the ending betrays this balance while amplifying it. However, I did applaud at the end while raising a slightly cynical eyebrow”.

“An emotional rollercoaster ride with the most incredible final scene. Loved it”.

“So nice to watch a film that shows how to appreciate life through genuine, authentic human connection rather than social standing -- and in such a meaningful way. There are multiple layers of themes, and while some stories feel a little idealised and clichéd, I loved the warmth and the baton of music passed through love. I'll remember it fondly, and it will remain one of my top films. Many thanks Film Society for introducing us to it!”

“Goes to show what music can do which reflected the film's rhythm after a slightly rushed opening – keen to set up the central relationship between the brothers. A smart blend of humour, emotional realism, edgy social commentary and some sentiment felt really 'French'. So, a story linking art, brotherhood, second even third chances, gives the viewer an insight into how brothers – one an assured professional musician yet maybe lonely, the other who feels inferior, working in a factory canteen, plays in a local brass band with comradeship - bond through need and shared love of music. Thibaut has joy and freedom through music, fear of leukaemia, a poignant grasp of possibly losing what he's found; a deeply touching story that we grasp he might lose just as he finds it. Jimmy is energetic, with ambition yet loyal to his comrades facing unemployment; his emotional growth mirrored by Sabrina, Jimmy's much put-upon partner. The mothers also have a grounded strength for their adopted sons. Ravel's Boléro, a metaphor for the film, forms an emotional landscape: a gentle hesitant start, then a cohesive and rich, crescendo. Harmony in the finale that will stick in my head and I put a tissue in my pocket ...”

“A real treat for a dark evening just after the clocks have gone back. A good story line, great acting and some beautiful music. A very emotional film without being too sugary and the rare applause and tears in the hall at the end of the film said it all. Another excellent choice. Thanks”.

“Would give 6/5 if I could”.

“Great and original plot line allowing some great and affecting music - and the sound in Borough Hall was right on song”.

“A really enjoyable film. Whilst a theme of the serendipity of family/ social class & its impact on opportunity/ life style ran strongly through the film it highlighted the similarities as well as the differences….which avoided it becoming sentimental whilst remaining heartwarming!”

“What was there not to enjoy! An emotional story of the two brothers reuniting and building their relationship through music. A well-constructed film, the story flowed well and was entertaining!”

MORE TO COME.