Lisa Spinelli (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a Staten Island kindergarten teacher, is dedicated in her job but unhappy in the rest of her life. At home she's in a loving but uneventful marriage to Grant (Michael Chernus), and their two teenage children, Josh and Lainie (Sam Jules and Daisy Tahan) are increasingly tired of her. But then while attending a weekly poetry class, Lisa hears one of her students, six-year-old Jimmy, reciting a poem which surprises and impresses her. Then she chooses to read it to her poetry classmates and teacher Simon (Gael Garcia Bernal), who mistakenly praise her for her "talent." Now inspired, after learning more about Jimmy's own unstable home life, Lisa sets out to nurture and promote his gift, taking increasingly unreasonable and unethical steps to do so.
This is a film I'm finding myself appreciating more, the more I contemplate it. Remaking a 2014 Israeli film, writer-director Sara Colangelo turns what could've otherwise been just another schoolteacher movie into a haunting and daring but restrained experience. It also works so well because it offers a brutally honest look at modern education, particularly regarding the gender-based double standards and preconceived notions therein, and Colangelo employs a rather cold but refined visual language to do so with. And what may be her strongest turn yet, Maggie Gyllenhaal is brilliantly understated.
It has a few pacing issues and Garcia could've played his part in his sleep, but those two shortcomings notwithstanding, The Kindergarten Teacher earns an 8/10 grade from me.
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