A Teacher (2013)
Written and directed by Hannah Fidell
Produced by Hannah Fidell, Kim Sherman, Michelle Millette, Annell Brodeur
Starring Lindsay Burdge, Will Brittain, Jennifer Prediger
A consequential opportunity to analyze the psychologic ties of instructive berth and amatorian condition isn’t entirely compassed in this handsome budget production concerning a backstair affair between a high school’s mousy, lovelorn preceptor (Burdge) and her swaggering senior student (Brittain). Her passion and paranoia mount pari passu as a love the educator’s callow paramour hasn’t the depth to reciprocate ordains her to unrequited misery…regrettably, directress Fidell hasn’t much to convey beyond the relational incompatibility of adults and teenagers, even in the absence of satisfactory coeval suitors. Technically, nothing’s to be faulted here: Fidell’s direction is capable if customary, DP Andrew Droz Palermo lenses beautiful scenery and umbratile interiors in modish high contrast, Sofi Marshall’s crisp editing braces the picture’s steady pace and the cast is quite fine, especially in Burdge’s solidly evocative radiation of carnal thrill, enamored elan, forlorn ache and that terrible sting of ruinous heartbreak. If Fidell’s undertaking underwhelms for a deficit of ambition, it’s still commendable for its refusal to stupidly conflate ephebophilia and pedophilia, instead prudently intimating that the former is less an iniquity than an especially injudicious indiscretion.
Mediocre: A Teacher
