A Teacher

So I guess instead of a real script, it's easier to have 4 intimate scenes in 20 minutes?! So much pointless filler, like her family issues. Then there was the soundtrack... It's difficult for this subject matter to be really boring, But they pulled it off.

Director Hannah Fidell got the idea of the movie Teacher while she worked at a restaurant waitress and was attracted to a young patron. She wondered how this would happen to a teacher. We often hear of older men and younger women, but how about the older woman, younger man? In A Teacher, Diana is a teacher at a suburban Texas high school. She has a strain relationship with her family and has few intimate friends. She crosses the lines and begins a sexual affair with a student Eric. In it, she is taken away to reignite the excitement of youthful lust and adapts to the world of quickies, sexting, and fantasy of her young suitor. Besides the ethical dilemma, she is carried away to continue this fantasy to a point of no return. This movie does a good job to show the humanity of Diana who simply craves emotional intimacy that she blocks from the thick wall around her. I saw this film as part of the Atlanta Film Festival.

What it does better is capture the joylessness of abuse. I liked that Diana's homelife was a share house rather than a marriage gone stale (as in the series). Also less glamourised.

We don't get to know the characters in this film. Hannah Fidell gives us no back story and no resolution. If you feel as nervous about the epidemic of teacher-student sexual abuse as I do, "A Teacher" won't leave you feeling any better.

"A Teacher" is not the cheap outrage movie I thought it might be. It is not full of raunchy sex. There is no violence to. The director attempted a psychological treatment of the perpetrator. She succeeds, but she doesn't surprise me.

Lindsay Burdge plays Diana Watts, a 30-ish high school English teacher with a lost lamb demeanor and a family crisis she is trying to avoid. Diana is not the Pam Smart sultry seductress with wicked intentions. She girl-next-door attractive, but she is depressed. I empathized. I wanted to help her find her way.

Diana has roommates and friends who ask her out to parties where she has the opportunity to meet guys, but she's so insecure she cannot really connect with her peers. Diana's ex-husband and her brother try to get her attention about issues in the family, but Diana is too confused deal with them.

How did a nice girl like Diana end up with that creep? Hidell leaves it up to us to guess.

Will Brittain plays Eric Tull, a hot high school jock from a rich family. Eric is the dominant one in the relationship. Eric decides he is going to take Diana to his father's ranch. Eric decides when they are going to have sex.

The sex depicted is not explicit, but Hidell makes it plain it is joyless for Diana. Eric is a bonehead. He doesn't read when Diana is feeling sad an anxious. He doesn't care. Eric's job is stud service. He could get any girl in school he wanted. It seems he thinks Diana should be grateful to HIM for a quickie in the parking lot!

Eric comes across as a bit old for high school. This often happens when directors cast 25-year-old hunks to play high school students. However, Hidell does a deft job in show us how Eric is not quite a man yet. Diana isn't able to convey to Eric the high risk of their relationship. Eric is not able to see the situation as an adult and exercise good judgment. He's just an over privileged Texas boy playing with daddy's toys and diddling his English teacher.

I wanted to see something bad happen to Eric. I wanted to see something good happen to Diana. I wanted a comforting answer as to why so many pretty, young teachers have sex with their students. However, Hidell does't just come out and give me what I want.

Apart from awkward camera work and the stop-and-go jumpiness from one seen to the next, Hidell does a good job with what she has. She doesn't try to emulate the Hollywood blockbusters. She doesn't make her actors punch above their weight, which steers the film away from b-movie movie ham.

I felt voyeuristic. It might have been me and my camera following Diana around. The absence of backstory or subplots gave me an undiluted taste of a perilous episode in Diana Watts' life.

The drawback of Hidell's cinema vérité is I found no redemption for Eric. I just hated him. However, Eric is the victim. Not Diana. Diana is the adult. Diana is the one breaking her contract, lying to her employers, and eroding society's trust. Yet, Hidell is telling me I must empathize with Diana, and I do. Perhaps Hidell is saving the tears of Eric for "A Teacher II."

I am not sure where the bad reviews come from unless they are from people upset with the subject matter. It is Hollywood people get over it. If people voted on movies based on moral compass than many would get a 4/10.

The Hot teacher thing is a double standard. This kid is a senior, 17+ which is the age of consent in many states. Let's not dwell on the possible criminal element of the movie. I don't know of any 17 year old horny males that would feel violated by a hot young female teacher. NONE. OK so enough of that.

These 2 have a hot fling. Obviously if anyone finds out about it her career would be over. He seems mature for his age and I thought the acting was well done and these 2 actors did a great job of pretending to be into each other.

Things start to go a little astray when she realizes she is really infatuated with this kid.

I thought the film and story was beautiful and artistically well done. The dialogue was real and I understand much of it was improvised.

It is short only about 1hr 15 min but it is worth a watch.