Sam-953-169285

This movie is much more about Dinky Bossetti (Winona Ryder) than Roxy Carmichael. It is about unjustified discrimination. It is generic discrimination; it is not a racial, sexual or any typical reason for discrimination. Dinky is different and for that reason alone she is discriminated against. In my opinion, the reason for that discrimination seems too vague. You will enjoy the story if you can identify with the discrimination. In my opinion however it does not explain well enough why she is different.

At the beginning of the movie, Roxy Carmichael is frustrated by her life and leaves her husband and child in the hopes of success. The movie builds up the Roxy Carmichael character so strong that we just have to see what she is really like when she returns.

This could have been a very nice story about the interactions among the students and between the students and the teacher. Most of the movie is like that, except the animosity is a bit exaggerated.

Then near the ending the movie gets unexpectedly ugly. I am surprised that so many reviews consider the ending to be normal and instead emphasize the good parts. The ending spoils it for me.

Other reviews make it sound as if the arrival of the new girl, Fiamma, occurs later in the movie. It does not; the arrival is relatively early.

Something else that is not mentioned is that Fiamma suffers from asthma. That is especially personal for me; I have had asthma worse than she does; at least for most of the movie. It is a little difficult to see her suffering (weazing and having difficulty breathing) at times during the movie.

I won't give away the ending of course, but the beginning of this episode will make many people uncomfortable. In the beginning the implication is that if a woman is in an abusive relationship for years that she is entitled to kill her husband. In the beginning there is barely any mention of the concept of imminent threat. I am not an attorney but we should be able to understand what imminent threat means without being an attorney. This episode, at least in the beginning, ignores what imminent threat means. And ignorance of imminent threat might cause some wives to think they are entitled to kill a husband just because he is abusive. They can easily go to jail for thinking that.