It is rather difficult to separate the presentation from the message, especially when the content of this film is undeniably disturbing (and exceedingly complex), no matter how liberal and open-minded some reviewers may wish to portray themselves. The story, the acting, the directing and the final product are all exceedingly well done, regardless of how one is angered and disturbed by what happens to Jonas, the central character in the film. In fact, the resulting emotional response to it all is testament to how well it was done. Towards the end of the movie Jonas, the young man who is the central focus of the story, angrily declares to his "mentor" that he has been abused by him. The stark reality of this, while hardly revelatory to the viewer, appears to come as a shock to both the abused and the abuser. In fact, most of the adults in the film have abused him, either actively or through neglect or incompetence or indifference. While the sexual aspect of it is the most glaring and disturbing, it is not the only way in which adults have failed him. At his age, he might be thought of as being on the border between child and young adult, but he is clearly child-like in his emotional development and vulnerabilities.The title, élève libre, has been translated to "Private Lessons." A more accurate meaning of the original title would be, in American English at least, an "auditing student" or an "unregistered student," someone studying outside of the normal student-in-school setting. Because Jonas believes, or has been led to believe, that he has the potential to become a professional tennis player, he has neglected his school work. Since he is already several years older than the other students in his class, his school refuses to allow him to repeat his studies again. They recommend that he enter a vocational school, which Jonas regards as a place for losers. Coincident with this personal trauma, his mediocre performance in tennis means he must face the fact that he will never become a tennis pro. His core family offers no support for him in his hope to once again prepare for his exams. Enter Didier, Nathalie and Pierre, friends of his mother. Initially they appear to offer Jonas support, both practical and emotional, in his quest to prepare for re-sitting his exams. They, in particular Pierre, take on the role that might better have been played by his family. At the same time that Jonas is dealing with problems with family, school and tennis, he is trying to understand the mysteries of sex and romance. He has a girlfriend, Delphine. They are both virgins and they begin to explore their sexuality together to their mutual satisfaction, but because of all the other "failures" in his life, Jonas wonders whether he is failing in this too.At first it seems the trio of adults in his life are also going to provide him with the benefit of their experience and wisdom in matters sexual, but what begins as dinner table conversations offering reassurance and some helpful advice, turns into an increasingly obsessive interest by them in Jonas and his sexual performance. Following their advice and sharing with them the intimacy of his relationship with Delphine eventually, understandably offends Delphine and ruins their relationship. The adults then become sexually involved with Jonas in a way that even the most open-minded person cannot deny is totally exploitative and abusive. I've read some reviews where the writer feels that the story is dragged out excessively by the lengthy conversations between the characters, especially the dinner table discussion between Jonas and the three adults, but these were essential to the development of those characters and the increasingly obsessive, disturbing interest they had in Jonas as someone to exploit for their own pleasure.This film will undoubtedly disturb or anger or titillate or otherwise provoke an emotional response from viewers. It is certainly not a feel-good experience with a happy ending (although there is a somewhat lame final scene that might be considered a happy ending). That the hetero and homosexual target of the abuse is a beautiful young man rather than a girl will probably be all the more offensive to some. Objectively it can only be considered an excellent production that deals with an unpleasant topic.

This movie depicts a sexual abuse of a male child by his "friends" who help him with his tennis training and school exams.The child has three elder "friends", one of them is a female. His mother and father are far away and he is alone with "them".There are 5 abuses depicted in the movie which take place when the child is in the "protection" of those elders.At first, the child is exposed to a sexual discussion in which the "elders" try to indoctrinate him about "infidelity" and they try to convince him to have sex with one of them.In the second, an elder, finally forces and convinces him to have sex with her while the child is drunk. The child's eyes are tied. Other two people watch him at that abuse.The third is a homosexual child abuse. While the second abuse is continuing, one of the male elders "take turn" and abuse him. At that moment, the child doesn't know a male is giving blow-job to him. He thinks a woman is doing it.The fourth is another homosexual child abuse. The second elder, who helps with exams, pushes to, convinces, and gives the boy a blow-job while the boy is trying to study to his exams.The fifth is again another homosexual child abuse. Like the previous, same elder "gay" person first gives him a blow-job then he penetrates the boy making it an "anal intercourse with a child".The elders use/abuse "Position of trust" to convince and push him to have sex with each of them.When the child accuses them for abusing him, the last abuser accuses him back with being an "opportunist". The movie takes side with the elders and it is depicted as if it is "normal" for elders to have sex with a child.The last guy says "I never did anything that you refused" or something like "I never forced you to do anything." And the child is showed as walking back into house as a justification of all this sexual abuse.I think producers, writers, and directors of this movie think that it is normal for an elder to have sex with a child if he or she doesn't "refuse." They should have known that a child isn't equipped with mental competency to cope with child abusers. You can't justify having sex with a child by saying "he/she didn't say no!" This is a crime against humanity.I condemn who contributed to this movie.

I'm sorry, that the previous critiques on this 2010 French/Belgian movie paint such a dark, horrific and - most of all - wrong picture of it's content and meaning.First off, let's get the plot right: Jonas, a young man around 17/18, lives alone with his brother near the Belgian border of France. His parents separated and his mother moved away and just visits them once ore twice a month. Jonas usually spends most of his time practicing to be a tennis-pro (just to get to a critique formally posted: you can not expect every young French actor to play tennis like a pro, bro) or with Didier, Nathalie and Pierre, friends of his mother, who play in the same tennis-club as Jonas does. As Jonas spends most of his time on the tennis-court, his academical achievements are not quite the top of the crops, actually he already is 3 years older than most of his classmates. Anyway, as most young man at his age, Jonas makes first contact witch sexuality (with a young girl from his school: Delphine) This stirs the interest of Didier, Nathalie and Pierre, who seem to have a very very good relationship with Jonas, as they talk (almost) openly about Jonas' experiences with Delphine.When Jonas isn't allowed to take the regular exams, Pierre offers, to prepare him for a special test to replace it. During this "private lessons" (which by the way is the German title of the movie) Pierre (Nathalie and Didier also) start to get very very VERY close to Jonas in the process of "teaching" him how everything works concerning sex.The movie does not (as previously claimed) deal with a "pedophile pervert" or "mid-thirties giving blow jobs to minors" but with the sometimes thin borders between being helpful, being close and being abused. Joachim Lafosse (the director) depicts in a very distant but still not cold way the subtle changes that lead to... well I don't wanna tell you to much ;-)After I watched the movie, I, personally, asked myself the question: When did this road towards "abuse" start? was it planned by Pierre from the beginning? Or was it Jonas' decision in the end?I think you should get your own answers and watch this astoundingly intense movie, perfectly fitting into the wave of Western-European new-age movies (for example the German movie "Everyone Else")Thanks for readingMaikP.s. : Excuse my weak English, it's actually 2.30am, but I just had to get some things right here ;-)

In hedonistic France this is probably defined as a "family drama", rather as "sexploitation shock-cinema".Thumbs up for French cinema: it has actually managed to devolve from perennial underage-Lolita-seduces-middle-aged-man to middle-aged-man-seduces-boy scripts. Just as you thought decadence in French movies could not possibly get any worse than it's been in recent decades, comes EL, a movie that will have you vomiting for weeks.The basic plot: Jonas, a not-too-bright 16(?) year-old tennis hopeful (how many tennis hopefuls ARE bright?) is sent to the home of Pierre, a middle-aged intellectual wannabe, where Jonas learns maths, history, and how to receive oral sex from people two-to-three times his age.Pierre - the smelly society-loathing anarchist pervert who ogles him at every opportunity and indulges in lame, self-serving philosophical diatribes - quickly introduces two more smelly perverts in Jonas's life: Nathalie and Didier, an open-relationship orgy/swinger couple who treat sex as if it were a used chewing-gum. One look at those three and you'd run. But what does Jonas know about running? After all, he's just a tennis player... Very soon Jonas finds out that maths, history and nihilistic philosophical rants are not at the top of Pierre's passions, but that molesting boys tops all his lists by a long shot. He sneakily prepares Jonas for this delightful adolescence-ruining ordeal by first destroying the boy's relationship with his girlfriend (by having everyone at the dinner table openly snicker at her for her alleged sexual inadequacies), and then getting Didier and Nathalie to prepare Jonas for a world of sexual perversion by giving him oral sex while Jonas, the gullible schmuck that he is, sits there blind-folded, unaware that he's being set up by three very, very smelly perverts for a life of bisexuality involving older men and rather unappealing middle-aged women with big noses.In the end, Jonas predictably starts feeling rather gloomy about having regular catching sex with his 45 year-old pitching male teacher. To cheer Jonas up a bit and perhaps avert a suicide attempt or two, Pierre tells him the movie's final line of dialogue: "I never forced you to do anything you didn't want." That line must be what all pedophiles love to use after desecrating the body of a minor. (Right after "hey, you asked for it!".) Even worse than all the stench-drenched pedophilic shenanigans that transpire in EL is the writer's message to the (young?) viewer to "think for yourself (like Kami says you should)" which invariably means - at least in the context of this degenerate movie - that children are the hope of not just the world, but of all of the world's lusting pedophilic perverts. The movie can even be understood as a guide for emerging pedophiles: it offers useful seduction tips for all those losers who are sexually attracted to children. For example, leave porn tapes lying around the living room, the way Pierre does.Who financed this abhorrent trash? That notorious Dutch pedophile political party? Pierre is supposed to be a former tennis player. However, his skills are on par with the most talentless beginner imaginable. It was like watching a rhino play golf.Why would they cast Jonas, a kid who obviously knows hot to play, along with an "established ex-pro" who obviously can't swing a racket in any useful manner - except to accidentally hit himself over the head with it? Needless to say, the movie is also bad because it contains dozens of drawn-out scenes/moments when everything seems to move in slow motion. Yeah, the century-old affliction of Europe's pretentious "cinema del arte" i.e. junk cinema. "Arteaux means never having to rush, never having to edit the movie to make it compact hence interesting". Did Kami say that? From his grave, perhaps...AVOID.A certain reviewer has posted a comment here with the sole intention of "educating me". (Or so he claims in the laughable email he sent me.) Read his "wonderful" plea for child-molestation: it's poetic almost. And, no, the kid is 16, pal, not 18.To the other reviewer (the one who says "bro"): no, I didn't refer to the kid's tennis-playing abilities being under-par. I was talking about the adult pervert playing like a rank amateur. Read my text properly.