The English Teacher

This film tells the story of an unmarried female teacher who is in trouble after an alumnus playwright goes back to her school for a school play.

Julienne Moore often plays challenging characters, and this English teacher is no different. She faces loneliness, shame and embarrassment; yet deep down she is a good person who does teenagers much good. I sympathize with her experience, and I thought she did not deserve such bullying. I liked the ending a lot, although I thought the film could have done without the narration of the voice that tells her what to do and what not to do.

The story is told in a comedic manner, hence I enjoyed watching it.

Julianne Moore gives a memorable performance as Linda Sinclair, a stodgily cool, attractively nerdy high school English teacher who finds herself in a compromising position with a talented former student whose play she's promoting to the school's administration and Thespians. While I loled once or twice, most of the consistent humor is of a drier, more satirical variety. This film does a nice job of compassionately satirizing a number of institutions and stereotypes, and this is one English teacher that really knows how to keep at least some of the class's attention without asking them to think too hard.

Notwithstanding the mock Masterpiece Theater narrator, THE English TEACHER is quite light comedy in the end, without a lot of character depth or conflict development. Though it's pretty tame stuff and looks like it could be rather uneventful, plenty happens throughout its short (90-minute) length.

Not to sound snooty, elitist, or anything else, but it seems that someone would need one and preferably both of the following in order to really enjoy THE English TEACHER: A) Some familiarity with the world of Secondary Education, its various workplace clichés ("Just take it down one level, please," etc), and sensitive legalities--admin's concern about the possibility of a lawsuit if they allow the students to put on a play that ends in bloody murder, etc.

B) Some familiarity with (and interest in?) classic American and British literature. While the frequent allusions are nothing heavy, it helps to know a little about who Lord Byron was, the basic plot of Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN, and so forth.

I strongly recommend this film to anyone who falls under those categories, particularly those who teach English. Some current high school students (and parents) with relatively sedate tastes may also like it. Those outside these perimeters may be rather bored by THE English TEACHER.

Nothing really wild happens beyond some implied sex, a lot of realistic profanity, and generally sensitive subject matter.

First of all watch the film, then make up your own mind, I can't stand people who come on here and give bland one or two word reviews. Its a small budget film which centers around a returning high school grad and an English teacher trying to help him succeed and reminding him to keep at his dream of becoming a playwright in New York. Its films like this that make me want to continue watching films, they center around characters, story and actual acting. If you want gimmicks and explosions with no point then go play a computer game or watch a Michael Bay film.

Okay so this film isn't the best you'll ever see but its decent.

Lifelong reader Linda Sinclair (Julianne Moore) is a 45 year old high school English teacher in Kingston, Pennsylvania. She's a spinster and has given up on men. Former student Jason Sherwood (Michael Angarano) has returned home as a failed writer in New York. She is taken with his play and drama teacher Carl Kapinas (Nathan Lane) is excited to do it. She judges Jason's dad Dr. Tom Sherwood (Greg Kinnear) to be unsupportive. Student Halle Anderson (Lily Collins) is the lead actress.

It's marginally funny. A flustered Julianne is somewhat funny. I'm not sure about Angarano although he has that slacker vibe which works in the role. I don't think I like his character. As for the plot, I doubt that Linda can be fired for that. He's in his twenties. It's not even a scandal. Julianne is hot. There's no reason not to. I just hope that Halle is not underage. The morality is all twisted although Halle's words do come back into play. Linda is forced to eat too much crow.

"The English Teacher" is actually a thought-provoking movie. It's somewhat bittersweet in its depiction of an array of likable, believable characters who encounter - and must deal with - a gap between personal ideal and reality. Take the drama teacher: he tells us that he once had ambitions, while now he's the quirky local school drama coach. Everyone, including the teacher herself, has some unfulfilled ambition bubbling beneath the public surface.

I'll admit to having perhaps a slightly different perspective than many other viewers. I live in the real-life Kingston, Pa. and saw the movie with an audience that "got" all the local references, for better or worse, and probably laughed harder than other audiences would. But I think any audience, anywhere, could enjoy - and even perhaps identify with - the characters who populate this movie. If "action" seems minimal, maybe that's because what's "happening" is the everyday lives that we eventually settle into.