Thibaut is an internationally renowned conductor who travels the world. When he learns he was adopted, he discovers the existence of a younger brother, Jimmy, who works in a school cafeteria and plays the trombone in a small marching band. Everything seems to set them apart, except their love of music. Sensing his brother's exceptional talent, Thibaut decides to remedy the injustice of fate. Jimmy begins to dream of a different life....
The Garden Cinema View:
After his Godot-in-prison comedy, The Big Hit, The Marching Band confirms Emmannuel Courcol as a true believer in the transformative potential of the arts. Pitched somewhere between Brassed Off and The Chorus, this is a decent vintage of feelgood cinema, albeit one that might be too much for the fromage-intolerant. Benjamin Lavernhe and Pierre Lottin harmonise well as the unlikely brothers, and there’s a huge amount of warmth directed towards the left-behind industrial town, whose residents we might more easily associate with gilet jaunes protests or Assemblée nationale rallies.
