The Kindergarten Teacher review: a messed-up Maggie Gyllenhaal gives a lesson in intensity
Dir: Sara Colangelo. Cast: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Parker Sevak, Gael García Bernal, Rosa Salazar, Ajay Naidu, Ato Blankson-Wood, Libya Pugh, Michael Chernus, Carter Kojima. 12A cert, 97 mins
There are few relationships films idealise more than the teacher-student bond – traditionally a chance for both sides to learn, flourish and seize their destinies. In The Kindergarten Teacher, only one party is convinced about any of this – not the five-year-old prodigy who sets the story in motion, but the woman who wants to nurture his rare poetic sensibility, both in- and outside her paid curriculum. This character’s brand of inspiration is pretty messed up, which is what gives the film its slippery element of suspense, gradually pulling out any safe footing the title might have imparted.
It’s an especially good use of Maggie Gyllenhaal, whose earnest intensity as an actress, gift for fatigue and slightly holier-than-thou authority are key assets here. As Lisa Spinelli, she gives off dissatisfaction in waves, perhaps because this character’s intellect isn’t stretched in any fulfilling direction – not in her settled home life with a lethargic if loving husband (Michael Chernus), and not in the job she very capably does instilling the rudiments of literacy in pre-schoolers.
This is, at least, until Jimmy Roy (Parker Sevak), an Indian-American boy in her charge, starts reciting a poem he’s made up while waiting to be collected from school. Lisa, a struggling amateur whose attempts in writing class are politely received at best, is struck by Jimmy’s word combinations and the beguiling simplicity of his phrasing. “Anna is beautiful / Beautiful enough for me…”, the first poem starts.
She tries passing it off as her own in class, and suddenly everyone takes notice, not least the teacher, a charming rake played by Gael García Bernal.
In remaking the 2014 Israeli film of the same name, writer-director Sara Colangelo has added some wrinkles while maintaining the basic premise: everyone loves Jimmy’s poems, but few know Jimmy has written them, and no one’s interested in unlocking his talents at all except Lisa. Jimmy’s babysitter (Alita's Rosa Salazar) humours her desire to write down everything that comes out of his mouth, but essentially treats it as baby talk, while his father (Ajay Naidu) demurs, keener for him to muck in like normal boys with baseball practice.
Lisa becomes convinced, essentially, that she is the only lifeline for Jimmy’s budding genius, and takes fostering it, bit by bit, into her own hands. Even she would acknowledge that this isn’t just for his sake: on some higher plane, it’s because she thinks the world needs more Jimmys, and she’s pleased with herself for being the one to spot his potential.
But we’re aware from early on of a deluded quality in her reasoning, which never confronts itself or asks if she’s simply trying to fill a void in her own life.
When she sits down to write a Jimmy-style poem as her own creative exercise, we hear the strained fruits of this, and realise that poetry is simply not in her bloodstream. The underwhelmed reaction of Jimmy when she reads it out, captured in a .gif-ready moment by the delightful Sevak, serves as confirmation. Still, the boy has a tacit, savant-like understanding of Lisa’s damage, and his instincts towards her prove as odd and compassionate as hers towards him amount to a cuckoo’s brand of custody.
You won’t guess exactly where the script is heading, what lines the film opts to cross or not cross, or where the darker undercurrents here might drag this curious, touching relationship. As an essay on what inspiration really means, and the delusions of patronage that could take a person prisoner, it excitingly commits to no foregone conclusions.
