THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER: Maggie Gyllenhaal Towers Over Tough, Uncomfortable Drama

If you encountered a genius student without the support system necessary for them to thrive, what would you do?

The correct answer is “the exact opposite of what Maggie Gyllenhaal does in The Kindergarten Teacher.” Writer/director Sara Colangelo‘s remake of the 2014 Israeli film of the same name presents a middle-aged teacher (Gyllenhaal) with a seemingly honest love for her students and her profession, only for her behavior to become erratic and inappropriate upon the discovery of a brilliant young poet (Parker Sevak) in her kindergarten class.

It’s an uncomfortable, often disturbing story, made fascinating by the gripping central performance and Colangelo‘s patient touch behind the camera. It’s a frightening look at how the relationship between a teacher and a student can blur into something more sinister, especially when the former is as opportunistic as Mrs. Lisa Spinelli.

Gifted Student, Opportunistic Teacher

Lisa is a kindergarten teacher in the greater New York/New Jersey area, and she receives about as much support as you’d expect for an educator in America. She has been a teacher in this field for nearly two decades, and yet she still does most of the work in the classroom by herself. When Lisa isn’t helping her students, she’s either attending poetry classes at a local university or spending time with her family. Despite her best wishes, she doesn’t really have much talent as a poet; both her instructor (Gael García Bernal) and her classmates are indifferent to her work.

When Lisa learns that Jimmy Roy, a student in her class, is obviously a prodigious poet, her feelings quickly become more complicated. On one hand, she displays a desire to nurture Jimmy’s talent. Lisa has a cynical view of how education is handled in America, and she believes that this young man needs to be treated like a new Mozart.

On the flip side, the exhausted teacher exploits both her connection to the student and his actual work. She treats Jimmy like he’s special, often in increasingly off-putting and unusual ways. She takes him places against the will of his father, even giving the young boy her phone number in the event that one of his poems comes to mind. But worse than that, she also takes Jimmy’s poems and claims them as her own, using them to gain esteem in her class. Lisa seems convinced that she’s doing the right thing, but does she have any idea the damage she’s causing?

Study Of A Complex, Contradictory Character

I’ve seen The Kindergarten Teacher characterized as a horror movie/thriller, and understandably so. It’s a film that teeters on the edge of something truly terrifying, often choosing to occupy this supremely unnerving gray area of dramatic unease. Still, this never really feels like a genre movie, which is mostly a byproduct of Colangelo‘s directorial choices. It’s easy to imagine an over-the-top version of this story, filled with melodramatic twists and ghastly moments. This is not that movie.

Colangelo‘s filmmaking is impressively minimalist; she never tries to squeeze the tension out of a scene, opting for awkward pauses and disquieting silence over chaotic turmoil. The camera often remains stationary and observant, capturing the doldrums of Lisa’s existence with an eye for the sheer tedium of her life. Colangelo‘s style allows for an important sense of patience, and it gives a critical insight into Lisa’s mind. Smartly, the film still preserves some degree of distance between us and the eponymous teacher – we understand her to a certain extent, but we can never quite reach her.

Of course, Gyllenhaal‘s intense, fiercely contradictory performance also goes a long way in preserving this distance. There are two Lisas on display in the film, and it’s a constant battle to see which one is the best personification of her true self. One version of Lisa is caring and empathetic, committed to the growth of talent and to a defining ideology of the American education system. The other Lisa is manipulative and cruel, acting on negative impulses and going beyond what’s necessary to support her goals.

Tense & Unnerving Dynamic

Gyllenhaal deftly walks the line between these two personalities clashing inside Lisa, bringing both gentle kindness and sociopathic intentions to this unbelievably complex individual. My only problem is that the movie tips its hand too early. The Kindergarten Teacher is essentially about one question: how far will Lisa go? Will she resort to lying or kidnapping in order to preserve this talent? Or does she have a limit?

By having her steal Jimmy’s poetry and use it for her own gain in an academic environment, we’ve answered this question while we’re still in the first act. That’s pretty low already; you know she can only go lower from here. She wants the adulation and the credit just as much as she wants to nurture talent. She’s genuinely opportunistic, but we understand that it comes from a place of great sadness. I just wish the film withheld more information from its audience, keeping that push-and-pull alive a bit longer.

Still, the dynamic between Lisa and Jimmy is enough to keep the movie afloat, even with some of the tension removed from the equation. Gyllenhaal deserves much of the credit for making Lisa so interesting, but young Parker Sevak‘s performance is almost equally compelling. Jimmy doesn’t say or do much, seemingly reserving poetry as his sole mode of verbal expression. But much of the film hinges on whether or not he fully understands what’s happening, whether he realizes that Lisa should not be trusted. In that unspoken way, Sevak commands the screen.

The Kindergarten Teacher: Conclusion

Colangelo‘s film is compact and succinct at 96 minutes, maintaining a sufficient sense of intrigue throughout. The minimalist spirit of the storytelling perhaps renders the whole endeavor a touch generic, but The Kindergarten Teacher is expertly magnetic as a vessel for a cringe-worthy effect of its own making. And with such a strong performance at its core, Netflix’s latest Oscar hopeful is well worth your time.

What did you think of The Kindergarten Teacher? Have you seen the original film? Let us know in the comments below!

The Kindergarten Teacher was released globally on Netflix on October 12, 2018.