The young Molière — before he was Molière, before he was famous, before the plays — ends up in the country house of a bourgeois merchant who wants to learn how to seduce a beautiful widow. He needs the merchant's money; the merchant needs his art. What Laurent Tirard's 2007 film constructs around this premise is an elegant speculation: what if the young playwright actually lived, briefly, the experience that became Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Tartuffe, and Le Misanthrope? The film is a love story and a literary origin story simultaneously, and it is one of the most culturally specific French films in the catalog.
For French students, the film offers 17th-century French in a contemporary-feeling form: the dialogue is written to sound period-appropriate without being incomprehensible, and the theatrical world of the plays provides immediate cultural context. Students who have read any Molière in class will recognize character types, situations, and even specific jokes, which gives the film an interactive dimension that purely historical dramas don't have.
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Key Themes for the Classroom
- Art and life — Molière observes everything and translates it into theater. Ask: Quels moments du film pourraient devenir des scènes de théâtre? Students identify the moments that will become the plays.
- Hypocrisy and sincerity — The merchant wants to be something he isn't; the widow wants something she's not allowed to want. Ask: Qui est sincère dans ce film? And: Is sincerity rewarded?
- French theatrical tradition — The film gives students a context for Molière's work. Ask: Qu'est-ce que Molière apprend dans ce film qui apparaît dans ses pièces?
Scene to use: Molière teaching the merchant to perform aristocratic speech and manner — the class in which a bourgeois man tries to become something he isn't. The French in this lesson-within-the-film is explicitly about register: what distinguishes the nobility's French from the merchant's French, and how that difference is performed. Ask: Qu'est-ce que Molière enseigne dans cette scène? Students identify the specific register markers.
Low-prep classroom activity: Students write a brief dramatic scene in French — in the style of Molière, with two characters whose language marks their social position. One character must be performing a social role they don't entirely fit; the other must notice without saying so. The constraint produces register-aware French writing with character depth.
What to listen for: The film's dialogue is written in a French that sounds historically plausible without being archaic — a balance the screenwriters achieve by keeping sentence structures simple and letting vocabulary do the period work. Students who have read Tartuffe or Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme will recognize character types: the pompous bourgeois, the scheming hypocrite, the young person with authentic feeling surrounded by social performance. Ask students: Quel personnage de ce film ressemble le plus à Tartuffe? Pourquoi? The comparison activates prior literary knowledge in the target language.
What to listen for: The film's dialogue is written in a French that sounds historically plausible without being archaic — a balance the screenwriters achieve by keeping sentence structures simple and letting vocabulary do the period work. Students who have read Tartuffe or Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme will recognize character types: the pompous bourgeois, the scheming hypocrite, the young person with authentic feeling surrounded by social performance. Ask students: Quel personnage de ce film ressemble le plus à Tartuffe? Pourquoi? The comparison activates prior literary knowledge in the target language.
The full French lesson plan for Molière is ready at filmarobics.com/products/moliere — $29.95.
Students walk away from Molière having seen French theater emerging from French life — and having understood something about the playwright that makes his plays make more sense when they read them.
The full French lesson plan for Molière is ready at filmarobics.com/products/moliere — $29.95.
📥 Want a free lesson plan? Get a complete FilmArobics sample — pick your language. Subscribe for your free lesson →
Students walk away from Molière having seen French theater emerging from French life — and having understood something about the playwright that makes his plays make more sense when they read them.
