None of the two dozen or so films I’ve written about over the past year were “blockbusters,” and most being only familiar to true film buffs; I don’t see any point in talking about films that are notable mainly for their entertainment value. Not that I don’t like to be entertained; I’m not really a Johnny Depp fan (mainly because I'm not a Tim Burton fan), and I only had the first Pirates of the Caribbean in my collection until the end of the trial, and I felt compelled to show my "support" by purchasing the 5-film R2 Blu-ray collection, and adding non-Burton films that are actually pretty good, like Donnie Brasco and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. On the other hand, I only found this of interest in regard to Amber Heard’s output, https://www.youtube.com/watch where these guys joke that her best acting in Aquaman is by her stunt double, which they find odd since they’ve “heard” that she knows how to fight “in real life.”
But here I only look at films that have some kind of social or political message, films that actually have a comment about the world we live in, and the vagaries of human nature. The film I’m going to watch today is actually a more recent film, 2018’s The Kindergarten Teacher, directed by Sara Colangelo and an Americanized remake of a 2014 Israeli film.
It stars Maggie Gyllenhaal in the title role; my favorite
actors tend to be those who differentiate themselves from the common run
through force of personality, and you see precious little of that today. In the
“old days,” musicians sang with their natural voices, and they sounded “real”;
today, fake “singers” just employ auto-tune, and they all sound the same
monotonous way. The same with most “acting” today; however, I give Gyllenhaal
some extra credit for taking roles that other actresses will not take (beginning with Secretary) because they are afraid to make politically "incorrect" gender statements.
The Kindergarten
Teacher is not only "incorrect," but a “brave” effort to examine how special
talents of countless people can fall between the cracks through being ignored,
uncultivated, or simply falling into the abyss of the unknown because they
exist in a world where there are also countless, talentless
superstars-in-their-own-minds who have the good fortune of knowing the
right people, or being “telegenic.” But it is also a film where people refuse to recognize the fact that the reason they are "nowhere" is because they don't have "talent."
Gyllenhaal plays a character (Lisa) who is one of those latter people. She is a would-be poet, but doesn’t possess that certain “something” that makes what she writes rise above the mediocre; of course mediocrity does not prevent someone from achieving “fame,” as I wrote about here: https://todarethegods.blogspot.com/search?q=angelou.But Lisa does recognize real talent, and her effort to cultivate it first begins with good intentions, but eventually devolves into an obsession, which results in everyone losing.
We first see Lisa getting ready for her Kindergarten class…
…and then attending a poetry class. She clearly has ambitions to be “somebody”:
Here we see her writing a poem on the ferry…
…and back in the poetry class, the teacher, Simon (Gael Garcia Bernal) asks her to read her assignment:
Lisa happily complies, thinking that she has written something “good.” We don’t hear what she has written until she returns home, and has her husband read it:
He thinks it is good, but Lisa tells him that someone said it was “derivative” and Simon suggested that she should put more of “herself” into it (not necessarily the “best” advice—see previous link). Lisa, who unlike with her own children has an easy rapport with Kindergarten kids, is back in her element, and the children are all treated as equally special…
.. until one day the “nanny”—Becca—of one of the students, named Jimmy Roy (Parker Sevak) is late to pick him up, and she sees him pacing back and forth, talking to himself, and she realizes that he is speaking in verse, that seems to be coming out of him spontaneously. Anna is beautiful. Beautiful enough for me. The sun hits her yellow house. It’s almost like a sign from God:
Lisa senses immediately hat he may have a natural gift for poetry, perhaps a child prodigy. She writes down the poem so no one forgets it…
…when Becca shows up, she relates that Jimmy occasionally starts talking like this, and promises to write down what he says the next time he does so:
Lisa reads the poem to her husband, who thinks it sounds “advanced,” and also thinks it is “peculiar” that a five-year-old would use words like “God.”
Lisa reads the poem in class, neglecting to mention it was written by a little boy…
…and this time Simon is impressed…
…so few elements, but so much “meaning.” Next time, write
about something “banal” and make it sound “new.” Later, Lisa finds an excuse to
take Jimmy out of the playground and asks him to explain what his poem means,
but it doesn’t appear that it came out of anything he actually thought
about, perhaps not surprising for someone his age:
Becca arrives to announce that she wrote something down she overheard Jimmy "composing":
She mentions that Jimmy might turn into a zombie and walk around talking like this several times a day. His father is "busy" and doesn't know about this, and his uncle sometimes shows up to read to him, sometimes poetry. His mother is living in Florida after a nasty divorce and custody battle.
Lisa again reads this new poem aloud in class as her own:
It is noted by others that it has nothing to do with the
assignment, but Simon, impressed by the quality of the poem, isn’t too
disturbed about that, in fact even more impressed by Lisa's "improvement" in her writing ability.
Returning from class, Lisa tries to get her daughter interested in something artistic, like photography, but she doesn't like the smell of chemicals in a dark room:
Lisa then calls Mr. Roy, Jimmy's father, but he is not home, and it is indicated that this is the second time she tried to call him:
During nap time for the children, Lisa wakes up Jimmy...
...takes him into the bathroom and tries to persuade him to compose a poem about a "point of view," which is her next poetry assignment. We are beginning to suspect now that Lisa's obsession is becoming more "personal":
Later, waiting for Becca to show up, Jimmy starts talking, and realizing it too late, Lisa only gets part of it. Jimmy doesn't remember what he just said:
Lisa has a discussion with Becca, again trying to get her cooperation to write down all this "poetry" he makes up out of thin air at any time:
Next she goes to speak to Jimmy's uncle, who curiously says that he has Jimmy "memorize" poems "just for fun." We can see that he is rather flummoxed by Lisa's lecture about society and how it is crushing talents like Jimmy's. This all seems to be a surprise to him--or maybe he is hiding something. He agrees to talk to his brother about this:
During nap time again, Lisa wakes Jimmy...
...and gives him her phone number, so that he can call her whenever he has another poem:
Back home, her son insists that he is sick of school and is joining the Marines; like his sister, he doesn't seem to have much ambition, or at least not the kind of life Lisa hopes for him. Her husband comforts her...
...they prepare to have sex, and then her phone rings:
It's Jimmy, and he has a poem. The next time at school, Lisa reads to him a poem she wrote; she obviously is impressed with herself, but Jimmy doesn't seem impressed by it; "That's a poem you wrote?":
Lisa tells him to forget he ever heard it, she doesn't want to spoil his talent. Back home, she catches her daughter smoking grass. Lisa again complains that her children are not very "intellectual" or "artistic." Her daughter has had enough of this, telling Lisa that "You worked so hard, and look where you're at"--meaning just a teacher of five-year-olds and an untalented poet-wannabe:
Her husband wants to know what is going on, but it's just some "drama."
Sitting on the front porch, on impulse Lisa calls Jimmy, who doesn't understand why she is calling him. It seems clear that Jimmy himself doesn't "understand" his talent or why Lisa is so interested in it.
Next we see Lisa on the ferry and then in Simon's office. He has arranged for her to recite two of "her" poems in front of an audience of fellow artists. he is amazed at her sudden rise from mediocrity to competence; perhaps he believes his teaching has something to do with it:
They have sex, and then Lisa takes Jimmy to an auditorium where he will practice reciting two of his poems.
Lisa seems unmindful of the fact that she has led Simon to believe that she wrote those poems, and he will be attending the recital. Next we see Lisa going to the bar run by Jimmy's father:
We learn from Mr. Roy that he doesn't think much of his brother, who had dreams of being an "intellectual" but is just a copy editor for a newspaper. He is happy that his son may have talent in poetry, but he thinks it is a waste of time, and he should learn a trade that will make him a lot of money. Lisa tells a white lie about Becca for some reason, and Mr. Roy agrees to fire her:
Lisa runs Jimmy through another recital practice...
...then after spending all day with him in an art museum, she returns him home late, where it is clear that Jimmy's new sitter is perturbed by this, since Lisa told no one about her plans:
Then the next day we see the father of another boy arrive after school to pick up Jimmy to take him to soccer practice, but Lisa tells him Jimmy is "sick" and won't be able to go:
That night Jimmy recites his poems...
...as a clearly perturbed Simon listens:
His reaction doesn't disturb Lisa; what does is the fact that Jimmy has told the audience the rather surprising admission that the "Anna" in his poem that he say he loves is Meghan, Lisa's assistant in the Kindergarten class. Lisa clearly feels betrayed given all that she has tried to do to advance his talent, and begins crying in a restroom:
We can only conjecture that to Jimmy, Lisa is just another teacher who is pushy and making him do things he is too young to understand what she is trying to accomplish. Afterwards Simon expresses his discontent about her deception. He thought she was a real "artist," but she is just an art appreciator and a dilettante:
Jimmy does not show up for school the next day. When she finally is able reach his father, he tells her that he placed Jimmy in another school because he doesn't trust her and believes she is a bit strange in head:
Lisa finally realizes that she has her own family, and attempts to be more understanding of her children's own desires, even for her son's intention to enlist in the Marines:
Unfortunately, she can't let ago of Jimmy. She follows as his father drops him off at his new school, and then approaches him during recess...
...takes him on a long road trip, eventually to a lake where they have a swim and hang out...
...and then to a hotel room. It is apparent that Lisa has lost her mind and is completely obsessed with Jimmy:
Unfortunately for Lisa, she didn't "get" message from the recital. Jimmy did not see her as a "mentor" but as a strange adult acting strangely and interfering with the routine of his life. He somehow manages to lock her in the bathroom while she is taking a shower...
...Lisa tries to reason with him, telling him that he needs her, they need each other because no one else will understand what he can do, and he will end-up like her if he doesn't allow her to help him. Instead, he calls the police to report that he has been kidnapped, although Lisa persuades him to tell them she is not armed...
...and we see that she is now completely defeated and has ruined her own life and perhaps any chance that he will realize his talent:
Jimmy holds her hand, but the camera pans upward to see her face, which now looks aged beyond her years:
The final shot is Jimmy in the police car, saying "I have a poem. I have a poem":
It isn't difficult to deduce the message this film is trying to tell, and it is one that inflicts many people who have lost dreams, or never realized them because they either didn't know the right people, or simply overrated their own talents. Lisa was not someone whose talent was ignored; she didn't really have any particular talent save that she was good with small children (certainly better at dealing with them than her own teenage children who she had difficulty in "molding").
Lisa did appreciate real talent, and her interactions with Jimmy might have remained within the range of acceptability if she thought that she was being supported by those around him. But this was a five-year-old kid whose poetic words were influenced by his uncle who had his own unrealized dreams of being a writer; in fact there is the chance that Jimmy's talents are a product of his misremembering lines from the poetry his uncle had him memorize. But in any case, his poetry comprises a few lines of a single thought, and if he indeed has talent for poetry, it hasn't yet fully developed, and he clearly doesn't see the importance of it since he doesn't write it down and usually forgets what he said minutes after he says it, as if it is coming from random thoughts.
Lisa realizes that someone has to help him develop his talent. But there is something more going on here, and soon it becomes clear that the line is blurred between who is the "teacher" and who is the "pupil." We recall that Lisa tried to write a new poem that she thought was good," but was again just a bunch of cute words organized into cliches, which didn't even impress a five-year-old.
We could "understand"--if not sympathize--with Lisa's decision to take custody of Jimmy in the hope they would be together long enough for him come up with many more poems before she was caught, but Lisa was so far gone now that she didn't recognize the difference between right and wrong, and she was willing to risk a serious felony subject to a prison sentence. In the end, she reach for the "dream" that had eluded her and lost everything; we are not sure what will happen to Jimmy, but it is implied at the end that no will care if he has a poem or not.
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