Demandez la permission aux enfants (2007)

The film revolves around three families: the Barbiers, the Sebags, and the Michelet de Varagnes. Their children attend the same school and cause them problems. The Barbiers are a blended family: Francis has married his partner, Marie, who has two children from her first marriage, Lola, ten, and Raphaël, five. While the youngest seems charming on the surface, his older sister behaves very unpleasantly toward her mother, and especially toward her stepfather, whom she hates. The Sebags represent a practicing Jewish family. Pierre, the father, struggles not to give in to the whims of his daughters, Salomé and Rachel, and also to resist his wife Anna’s permissiveness, as she lets them get away with everything. Lola makes her mother and stepfather feel guilty, while her classmates Salomé and Rachel do the same to their father. As it happens, the children are in the same class, and their parents meet. Completely overwhelmed by their offspring, the parents consult a psychologist, who advises them to use the mirror effect—in other words, to give the children back what they have received. One day, Marie finds a job as a typist through her town hall. The person whose reports she is to write is François Xavier Michelet de Varaignes, a history and geography teacher who specializes in the Middle Ages. This very wealthy couple is being victimized by the cruelty of their three children: their eldest, Clémence, and their twins, Clarence and Maxence, who take their parents for granted and treat their grandparents, as well as their maid Rosa, with contempt. Marie then decides to give the couple advice, knowing that they are going through the same trials as she and her family. From then on, the parents stop carrying the children’s schoolbags; Francis humiliates Lola in the cafeteria; and Pierre removes the middle car seat before giving his daughters proper dental care, since he is a dentist. Meanwhile, François Xavier and Elisabeth trash the children’s bedroom, force Clarence to take a laxative, and lock the doors of the family home. They also take the opportunity to wash their hands of all parental responsibility, forcing the children to do the housework themselves for no reward and hiding their snacks. The children very quickly become the laughingstock of their classmates when Lola has no sneakers to wear, and their lives become a nightmare when Pierre reprograms the television so that only channels without children’s programs remain. In addition, Francis and Marie gang up on Lola, pretending to be an ally of Salomé’s first over the phone and then on social media. Not content to leave it at that, all the children except Raphaël join forces against their parents by posting real-estate listings to sell their respective homes. The parents then take them to spend a day at a home for rebellious children. But their plan backfires when the children run away, taking Raphaël with them. They eventually find the answer at the psychologist’s office, where they learn that their parents set rules for them to keep them from ending up frustrated. The film ends with the families picnicking in a garden as a downpour begins. But it seems the children have not entirely shaken off their old habits.