The Kindergarten Teacher

2018 drama

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A kindergarten teacher becomes obsessed with the poetry of her young pupil and crosses a few lines.

"It's very unclear to me what you are doing."

A character says that to Maggie Gyllenhaal's titular kindergarten teacher at one point, and the words matched my sentiments exactly. I know I was supposed to connect Gyllenhaal's relationships with her own children and maybe even her husband to the relationship she wanted with this little kid or look at how her life of unfulfilled dreams or ennui could lead her to want to live vicariously through him, but none of that was developed well enough for me to completely connect. The family stuff actually felt a little unnatural to me, not the same kind of unnatural vibe that existed with her troubling relationship with the kid. The whole thing just felt a little off to me, and I wonder if the 2014 movie from Israel that this is a remake of makes clearer connections.

The kid, played by an actual kid named Parker Sevak, was pretty good even if almost every single line he was given had the exact same tone. He called for help, for example, in the exact same way he read his poetry. I did like his poetry, too, better than most poetry anyway. He was a lot better than the kid they got to play Gyllenhaal's poetry teacher--Gael Garcia Bernal. He wasn't natural at all.