Based on a true story, set out loosely like a documentary with a partial script, 'School Days with a Pig' follows 28 school children chosen by audition, who raise a pig that will be eaten by them.

• Movie: School Days with a Pig
• Romaji: Buta ga Ita Kyoushitsu
• Japanese: ブタがいた教室
• Director: Tetsu Maeda
• Release Date: November 1, 2008
• Movie Studio: Nikkatsu
• Distributor: Nikkatsu

A new elementary school teacher who wants his students to learn “the real connection between life and food” has a proposal for his sixth-grade class: They’ll adopt a piglet and care for it over the course of a year, but at the end of the year, the pig will be eaten. The students eagerly accept the challenge. After all, the end of the year is a long way away and the wriggling piglet is right there in the classroom. They name it “P-Chan,” build a special enclosure on the playground, and take turns with the chores of brushing and feeding it.

But the more attached they grow to P-Chan, the more difficult the question of the pig’s fate becomes. Based on a true story that became a subject of national controversy in Japan, School Days With a Pig is a thoughtful and warmhearted engagement with the adult issues of consumption, quality of life, and personal responsibility as seen through the eyes of children.

Elementary school teacher Mr. Hoshi (Satoshi Tsumabuki) comes to class at the start of term with an unexpected friend in tow: a pig, which he informs his students that they will be raising over the course of the year and then eating. Under the watchful eye of the kindly school principal (Mieko Harada) and her disapproving deputy (Ren Osugi), the kids take to the task with aplomb, christening their new charge "P-Chan" and building her a sty in the school playground. But as the year wears on, many start to have doubts about whether they can turn the class pet into pork chops.

Based on a true story, Tetsu Maeda's film was a firm crowd favorite at this year's TIFF, where it won the Audience Award. You can see why: it's got a highly bankable star, cute kids, a generous slathering of sentimentality and an underlying theme that's dear to the hearts of most Japanese viewers - food.

What sets it apart from your average mainstream fluff, though, is the offbeat approach that Maeda takes to the material.School Days with a Pig develops in the way that a good class project might: rather than stick rigidly to the script, Maeda gives his cast space to work with the material, and parts of the film have a loose, semi-improvised feel to them. (In the TIFF festival program, he speaks of creating "something more than what is in the script, rather than a film without a script," which seems an apt description.)

This is most true of the classroom scenes, which are also easily the strongest parts of the movie. Maeda takes a light touch, shooting documentary-style with handheld cameras to create an immersive and surprisingly realistic atmosphere. When the kids sit down to debate the ethics of making bacon for the first time, you'd swear they weren't acting any more.

Things are helped along by Tsumabuki, an eminently likable actor whose charisma lends itself to the role of enthusiastic young schoolmaster. He maintains a convincing rapport with the students, who must be the least irritating group of screen tykes I've seen for a long time. All get to have their own distinct personality without having to resort to archetypes: even the token fat kid is believable.

Maeda is perhaps guilty of milking these scenes for more than they're worth, mind you. The multiple (!) debates about P-Chan's fate seem to get longer each time, culminating in a marathon session that probably could've been chopped by 5 minutes without losing its impact. These segments also sit uncomfortably with the rest of the film, which is more obviously directed and a whole lot less interesting. It's a shame, too, that Maeda let his good judgement desert him in the icky mid-point musical interlude and the final scene, which is more likely to have some viewers reaching for a bucket than a box of tissues.