THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER (2018) ** ½

Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as Lisa, a lonely kindergarten teacher stuck in a dreary everyday existence.  When her student Jimmy (Parker Sevak) writes a beautiful poem, it snaps her out of her rut.  Her homelife is a wreck.  Her children are indifferent, and her husband is boring.  The only spark in her life comes from this kid in her class.  Lisa soon becomes obsessed with him and keeps pestering Jimmy for more and more poetry.  Frustrated with her own poetry, she begins passing it off as her own.  Her obsession soon goes off the rails when she begins taking him into the city without his parents’ knowledge to attend poetry slams.

Part indie character study drama, part From Hell thriller, The Kindergarten Teacher is an odd duck to say the least.  It’s buoyed by an eccentric performance by Gyllenhaal, who’s stalkerish actions sometimes border on uncomfortable (especially where a child is concerned).  The way she gets too close to the boy and prattling on and on while the kid takes no interest in her is unsettling to say the least.  So are the scenes where she pulls him away from the class at naptime so she can get him alone in the bathroom to talk about poetry.  (I’m pretty sure this a big no-no in the public-school system).  

If this was a male teacher, it would be a whole different vibe.  Red flags would be flying left and right.  As a woman, she can pass herself off as being motherly and attentive without causing too much attention to her increasingly bizarre behavior.  

As a parent, it’s okay to think anything your kid does is great.  When it’s your student, you can encourage them up to a point.  The unhinged Gyllenhaal crosses that line very early on and never looks back.  (She even gives him her phone number!)

Gael Garcia Bernal has some good scenes as Gyllenhaal’s creative writing teacher.  Rosa (Alita:  Battle Angel) Salazar also leaves a memorable impression in her small amount of screen time as the kid’s nanny.  However, this is Maggie’s show through and through.  Her wild-eyed antics aren’t enough to save the movie, but they will surely raise your eyebrow a time or two.  (Wait till you see how her sex life is impacted by her obsession.)

Directed by Sara Colangelo, The Kindergarten Teacher is too slow moving and deliberately paced to function as a thriller and it feels too lurid to work as a portrait of mental illness.  As it is, it kind of falls somewhere in between.  There’s more social awkwardness than out and out tension and Gyllenhaal’s actions are more head-shaking than heart-stopping.  Still, if you’re a fan of Gyllenhaal’s, you owe it to yourself to see it, just on the strength of her performance alone.