They say that you can’t help but watch things go wrong, and Sara Colangelo’s “The Kindergarten Teacher” shows just how wrong it can get when a person reaches their breaking point. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays kindergarten teacher Lisa Spinelli, capturing the broken woman’s obsession with a young child in a realistic, terrifying way.
A struggling poet, Spinelli develops an inappropriate fascination with five-year-old Jimmy after hearing him recite a poem in class. The relationship she forces on this young Mozart flies in the face of ethics, and that tension produces a hunger to see what happens next. Gyllenhaal brilliantly portrays the frustration of Spinelli as the innocent Jimmy proves to be far more talented than she is.
It is difficult to watch when Spinelli leeches off of the young boy’s talent: calling him incessantly, getting his nanny fired so she can take the job and continually pushing him to let her know whenever he “has a poem,” but that only speaks to the gravity of the film. The gripping feeling of worry for Jimmy is matched only by the pity produced by Spinelli, and yet I found myself rooting for both of them.
Colangelo often shows Spinelli leading Jimmy around by the hand, and the charming playfulness with which Gyllenhaal interacts with Jimmy appears more and more disturbing as the film progresses. Most shots of the two together hint that something is off with their relationship. Spinelli is always at the center, and Jimmy is off to the side, pointing at her selfish desire to use his talent.
The middle of the film is when it hits its stride. Before then, it feels more like a character study of a wistful art-appreciator wishing to be an artist. Gyllenhaal’s authentic characterization of a mother, teacher and poet who feels unappreciated and ignored is relatable and makes her eventual breakdown all the more saddening.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much backstory to Jimmy, other than the knowledge that he comes from a broken home. This lopsidedness is perhaps intentional to symbolize Spinelli’s worldview, but Jimmy’s unknown past made some plot points less believable. The strength of “The Kindergarten Teacher” is the uneasy but irresistible sensation that comes from watching something you’re not supposed to, so it’s crucial to see Jimmy as a three-dimensional person and not just “a gifted child.”
“The Kindergarten Teacher” is one of those films that makes you flinch and turn away, but then keep watching. Something is intriguing about seeing such a relatable character change from a loving teacher into a parasitic stalker in a short amount of time. There is real anxiety when Spinelli walks up to the playground fence of Jimmy’s school. Gyllenhaal manages to extract sympathy from the viewer in the same way Spinelli takes poetry from Jimmy. The result is a delightful tragedy about the danger of getting carried away.
