2018 ( USA | Israel | UK | Canada ) ( Drama )
Starring: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gael García Bernal, Ato Blankson-Wood
Director: Sara Colangelo
Lisa (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a forty-year old married kindergarten teacher living in Staten Island who is terminally bored with her banal middle-class existence. When she becomes convinced that Jimmy, her five-year-old student, is a budding poetic genius, she decides to nurture his talents in a reckless and questionable manner. So Lisa takes charge by insinuating herself more deeply into Jimmy’s life, her ability to separate good intentions from inappropriate behaviour becoming increasingly fuzzy. Even as Lisa goes completely rogue, and the suspenseful thriller element is fortified, the tonal mix of searing melancholy and danger is tempered with playful notes. The Kindergarten Teacher is a brilliantly understated study of obsession, a perfectly poised portrait of a woman on the edge. It is a haunting and sometimes uncomfortable dip into the mind and desires of a woman who feels stifled by the life she’s chosen for herself and aspires to be as creative as the poets she admires. Gyllenhaal absolutely shines in her role and The Kindergarten Teacher is probably the only movie about poetry with an ending as tense as any thriller.
(1hr 36min)