I’m used to films being poorly researched. Not all films, mind you, but certain genres seem to make up rules and history as is needed. Action films, for instance, play a great deal with reality as –thankfully- explosions are rare in real life. These films may make no sense, but they compensate with chases and thrills and death. And then, there are films that are poorly researched for no reason, like The Kindergarten Teacher. While The Kindergarten Teacher lacked for gun play and explosions, I still had several issues with a thirtysomething woman trying to play book club with a nonplussed five-year-old.
Lisa Spinelli (Maggie Gyllenhaal) has taught kindergarten for twenty years. Well, you could have fooled me; based on some of her actions, I would guess she hadn’t been at this game for more than two weeks, and never apprenticed the job. It’s not the demeanor; she does “act” the part well – Maggie Gyllenhaal remains a quality actress— while the screenplay focused on simply teaching that is. But this one decided plot-wise it would go the Salieri route, and that’s where reality took a detour.
This film asks if you recognized mini Mozart, what would you do? Would you encourage or ignore? Teacher Lisa hasn’t got it in her to ignore. One afternoon she’s seeing the children out and her straggler, Jimmy (Parker Sevak) stays behind for a monotoned, audienceless performance. Blankly, the kid recites:
“Anna’s beautiful/
Beautiful enough for me/
The sun hits her yellow house /
It’s almost like a sign from God”
That’s a pretty deep set of thoughts coming from a five-year-old and, admittedly, better than my average limerick. Lisa overhears the kid … and the insanity begins.
I’m put off that no one ever questions: “Jimmy, did you write that poem?” Because not only are the thoughts too large for your average child; Jimmy’s delivery nears a trance state, as if he’s recalling from memory (which, of course, he is). BTW, one piece of business, never name your prodigy child “Jimmy.” As someone who owns the root name, take it from me that “Jimmy” is just about as far from prodigal as it gets.
Back to our film, Lisa does not question Jimmy. Instead, she writes down the poem and passes it as her own in her writing class. Her teacher, Gael García Bernal, is impressed. Later on, this gets her into bed with Bernal. Normally I’d say scoring with the words of a five-year-old is the worst sexual leveraging situation I’ve ever seen, however, I’ve been to college; I once saw a guy pick-up a girl with the phrase, “I’m failing math.” Anyway, Lisa doesn’t stop at plagiarism; she returns to the source and finds there’s more poet in Jimmy, and damn if Lisa ain’t gonna nurture the heck out of Jimmy’s gift.
Ok, so, I suppose this isn’t the worst premise I’ve ever heard, but boy does it take some ugly and unbelievable turns. Lisa obsession starts becoming her life. She starts pressing Jimmy, clearly favoring him over the other students, her husband, and her two own teenagers. The unspoken message of, “Screw you guys, this is the child I wish I had” is loud and clear. She also makes several questionable moves at work, like isolating Jimmy for little one-on-one sessions in the bathroom. I can’t tell which I’m more appalled by: the fact that we have a teacher in 2018 taking a five-year-old into the bathroom alone and closing the door behind them or the fact that the kid has no emotional reaction to any of this. He barely seems like he’s in the same zip code as teacher Lisa, much less discussing poetic convention. The dialogues between the two (and there are many) are entirely one-sided. Jimmy is arguably the most important player in the cast and I’d bet that his number of non-poetry lines of dialogue is fewer than ten. For the most part, this Maggie Gyllenhaal acting against a brick wall.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film fail completely for lack of research, but there it is. How hard would it have been to talk with an actual elementary school teacher or two? Would it have killed ya? How about a parent? How would you genuinely react if your five-year-old’s teacher took your child away from school on their own without telling anybody? Tell me, is that “I’m not sure I agree” or “I’m calling the police!” material? As there’s no connection between teacher and student here, (in my mind) the procedural research errors are blown up four-fold. Hence, it’s impossible to pretend that anything you see on screen is intriguing, because there’s a 0% it would go down this way. And if I’m being honest, The Kindergarten Teacher wasn’t going to be a great film even if it were honest.
With children, it’s hard to relate
Or find specs to ingratiate
With my latest sin
Her patience wears thin
I forgot the Proust for our playdate
Rated R, 96 Minutes
Director: Sara Colangelo
Writer: Sara Colangelo
Genre: Child “prodigy”
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Little Man Tate
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Genuine kindergarten teachers
