The Kindergarten Teacher, written and directed by Sara Colangelo - 7 out of 10

The Kindergarten Teacher, written and directed by Sara Colangelo
7 out of 10


Maggie Gyllenhaal is an outstanding artist.

About seven years ago, I had the chance to listen to The Bell Jar, read by this phenomenal performer and it will always be with me.

Alas, I do not think that The Kindergarten Teacher offers the optimum medium for this grand actress to express herself at the best of her abilities.
It is a strange story.

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the role of Lisa Spinelli an emotional, dedicated, gentle, generous teacher.
Almost a role model!

She has some issues with her daughter, but who doesn't.
Lisa Spinelli takes some creative writing classes.

The teacher who explains how aspiring writers need to change the angle, the perspective from which they look at things and then find they are more creative is Simon aka Gael Garcia Bernal.
He finds some poems allegedly written by Lisa to be very remarkable.

They talk in private and the teacher becomes intimate and seems to try and seduce his pupil.
She is on a couch and he is on his knees touching her.

The woman slips from the couch, takes her blouse off and presumably they have sex.
At home, Lisa doesn't manage to have coital relations with her husband for long periods, given that they are not alone it appears at any moment.

At one point, Grant Spinelli, the husband, even remarks upon this  - since they seem to be alone, they prepare to make love, only the phone rings...
This intimacy problem at home would surely explain in part the infidelity that involved Simon and part of the disastrous decision took by the Kindergarten Teacher at a crucial stage.

She lacks self esteem, considers at times - perhaps most of the time - that her life has been wasted and she missed the opportunities that she has had.
When she finds a talented boy in her class, she feels he is a precocious genius.

He writes poetry and Lisa Spinelli loves it so much that she passes it for her own.
Simon is enraged when he finds the truth about the poems presented by his student.

Things Fall Apart - this is the name of a masterpiece listed among the Best 100 Novels of All Time, written by Chinua Achebe - when the teacher decides to take the boy away!
She thinks and states that if he would stay in the normal world, he would see his future and potential wasted...

Just as it happened to her.
The boy realizes what the adult is doing - at least to an important extent - and locks her in the bathroom when she is taking a shower, in room 104 at a remote hotel, near a beautiful forest.

Since she is not one of those evil, vicious predators that take children away to abuse, harm her, she tells him that if he wants to call the police, he has to dial 911

Tell them I do not have a weapon.

The Kindergarten Teacher is an outre, strange motion picture, for which you have to have the right state of mind I guess to appreciate it.