''The Under-Gifted'' (french: Les Sous-doués) is a 1980 French

teen Adolescence () is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated with the te ...

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending ( black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by Claude Zidi.

Synopsis

The students of the Louis XIV

Lycée In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...

are known to constantly fail the

Baccalauréat The ''baccalauréat'' (; ), often known in France colloquially as the ''bac'', is a French national academic qualification that students can obtain at the completion of their secondary education (at the end of the ''lycée'') by meeting certain ...

test, the school is the last in the baccalauréat ranking with 100% of failures. Indeed, they voluntarily have bad results in order to be able to continue having fun as students. They make many pranks including small crimes. However, Lucie Jumaucourt, the director, decides to increase the

school discipline School discipline relates to actions taken by teachers or school organizations toward students when their behavior disrupts the ongoing educational activity or breaks a rule created by the school. Discipline can guide the children's behavior or ...

. Although she seems to succeed in reframing them regularly, the director realizes that she and her teaching team made up of her husband, her daughter and the imposing Mr. Bruce (new sports teacher) are in turn victims of new pranks by the students by way of retaliation. In the meantime, a new pupil, Gaston Pourquier, who has the particularity of being very old, joins the class during the year. During this time, Bébel will spend part of the year flirting with Caroline, Julien's girlfriend, but the latter, exasperated, successively sends her friend Ruth and the nymphomaniac Jeanne to her bed. The latter, after having had relations with many school friends, finds herself pregnant. Exasperated by the students' lack of results, the headmistress takes new measures by installing a learning machine in the school. The machine teaches students by corporal punishment. Bébel, to end this brutality, calls the police to report a bomb threat, and the school is evacuated. But this strategy will not work for very long and the students decide at the bar to make one with firecrackers placed in a

couscous Couscous ( '; ber, ⵙⴽⵙⵓ, translit=Seksu) – sometimes called kusksi or kseksu – is a Maghrebi dish of small steamed granules of rolled durum wheat semolina that is often served with a stew spooned on top. Pearl millet, sorghum, ...

pot. However, the bartender, who is a terrorist, overhears the conversation and is inspired to make one to bomb an embassy. There was exchange between a schoolboy firecracker and an authentic terrorist bomb, both hidden in a couscous pot. The real bomb exploded in the school. The city mayor offered to students: pass the exam or go to prison. The commisiare, who the gang pranked by calling him anonymously on the phone for fake bomb threats, is put in charge of watching them. Although the students were not prepared for the exam, they found very innovative methods of

cheating Cheating generally describes various actions designed to subvert rules in order to obtain unfair advantages. This includes acts of bribery, cronyism and nepotism in any situation where individuals are given preference using inappropriate crit ...

: books below shoe bottom,

djembe A djembe or jembe ( ; from Maninka language, Malinke ''jembe'' , N'Ko script, N'Ko: ) is a rope-tuned skin-covered goblet drum played with bare hands, originally from West Africa. According to the Bambara people in Mali, the name of the djembe ...

drums, overhead projectors,

birth Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the f ...

delivery just during the exam, and everyone passed, in spite efforts to control cheating. Ten years later, they have all succeeded in life: Bébel runs a cinema newspaper, Julien has become a very BCBG specialized doctor married to Caroline with whom he had eight children, Jeanne the nymphomaniac runs a dating club, Gaëtan is an inspector for the repression of fraud, Togo the African is president of his native country and Graffiti, an expert in theft of mopeds, has become the boss of a garage of luxury car. The exception was the police officer now degraded to ordinary traffic policeman. He was invited by Bébel to celebrate the tenth birthday of the daughter of Jeanne and therefore also the 10 years of their baccalaureate since Jeanne had carefully chosen to give birth in the examination room.

Cast

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Under-Gifted 1980 films 1980 comedy films 1980s high school films 1980s teen comedy films Films directed by Claude Zidi French high school films 1980s French-language films French teen comedy films 1980s French films