Adorável Professora

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 true romantic is always alone and must ever be on guard against a dangerous world." Linda (Moore) is an unmarried English teacher with a passion for teaching her students, when Jason (Angarano) a former student of hers shows up and fills her in on his life. After graduating from NYU he has become a failed playwright and his overbearing father is forcing him to go to law school. After reading one of his plays Linda talks the school into producing it which causes tension between him, his father, and the school as well as bizarre love situations. Based on the cast alone I was very much looking forward to seeing this. Greg Kinnear is one of my favorite actors and Julianne Moore is great in everything. The idea didn't seem all that original or exciting but the acting more then makes up for it. It seems like every movie made about a teacher involves an English teacher and most of the time they are very good. This is really a toned down, less classic version of Dead Poet's Society in the way that the teacher tries to help a student realize his potential against the wishes of his father and the school. I am in no way comparing this to Dead Poet's Society but it is worth watching and I did enjoy it. Overall, great acting and funny, very much worth watching. I give it a B.

"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.

This is one of those indie movies that is much better than many big budget feature film comedies.

The story combines original comedy, a touching partly dramatic climax and a feel good plot that comes together perfectly. The comments on screen are an original touch. No wonder such a top notch cast appears in it.

The performances are stellar. Julianne Moore gives a wonderfully varied and moving performance as a spinster English Teacher in high school who mounts the play of an ex student played by Michael Angarano. She can do comedy just as well as she does drama and biopics.

The supporting cast includes Broadway veterans Jessica Hecht and Norbert Leo Butz as school principals, Nathan Lane as the diva of a drama teacher, the lovely Lily Collins as a high school student and aspiring actress and finally Greg Kinnear as the young playwright's father.

This is one of the best indie comedies in years and deserves much more critical acclaim and financial success than it received. Look forward to seeing more from the screen writing duo who penned the story.