Release Date: May 17, 2013 (Limited)
Currently Available via OnDemand Platforms
Director: Craig Zisk
MPAA Rating: R
Film Pulse Score: 2.5/10
There are really only two reasons I wanted to see The English Teacher. First, it stars Julianne Moore who has been one of our finest actresses for nearly 20 years. Second, it is directed by Craig Zisk whose name I knew from credit-watching popular television series; he has directed episodes of some popular and acclaimed series including “Nurse Jackie,” “Weeds,” “The Office,” “The Closer,” “Nip/Tuck,” “American Horror Story,” and “Parks and Recreation.” I wanted to see what the combination of a veteran actress and first-time feature filmmaker (but experienced television director) could produce. And what did it produce? It produced in me a feeling of déjà vu – how many times have we seen an accomplished star and an accomplished director in search of a script? The script is pretty awful and pretty pedestrian and, well, awfully pedestrian. There are few things worse than an unfunny comedy, and so there are few things worse than The English Teacher.
Dan and Stacy Charlton have written a script about a single English teacher named Linda Sinclair (Moore) who is more-or-less married to her profession. She has been a bookworm all her life and her only real romantic experiences have occurred from figuratively curling up with a good book. The film opens with her going on several horrible dates in which she grades them. Her comments and grade appear on the screen as cartoonish writing. The film is also narrated by a story teller. See the filmmaking and storytelling clichés yet? And we are only into the film’s first 15 minutes.
Soon, she runs into a former student, Jason Sherwood (Michael Angarano), who she mistakes for a mugger and pepper sprays. This meeting allows the two to catch up when she drives him home; the least she can do after injuring him. We learn that he went to New York, got his degree in writing, and wrote a play that no one wanted to produce. And thus the seed is born. Through a series of we-have-seen-it-all-before moments, Linda decides to have the high school put on Jason’s play. Of course, comedy ensues. The well-meaning but flighty principal (Jessica Hecht) and her uptight vice principal (Norbert Leo Butz) agree to allow the sensitive, overly-dramatic drama teacher, Carl Kapinas (Nathan Lane), to produce the play as long as they change his downer ending where the lead characters kill themselves.
We have Jason’s father, Dr. Sherwood (Greg Kinnear), who is portrayed as the bad guy who wants his son to give up his creative dreams in order to go to law school. And of course, Linda will go head-to-head with Dr. Sherwood over Jason’s soul and while they begin as enemies, they will eventually fall in love by the film’s end. Along the way, Jason and Linda have a sex session in her classroom. Jason also accepts the romantic advances of the play’s star, Halle Anderson (Lily Collins). Jason and Linda’s sexual escapade becomes common knowledge and Linda is fired – do not worry, she is rehired when she comes back to rewrite the play’s ending and direct the students to greatness.
The film is one bad cliché after another: the spinster teacher who finds love with her former student’s father; the former student who has failed in New York but finds success back at his former high school; that same former student whose play is about his own life’s failings and his blaming of his father for his own problems; the drama teacher who always wanted to be an actor himself but was never good enough and so now directs at a high school in the small town from which he is from; etc.. Trust me, you have seen portions of this film before and you have seen it done better, so skip this film and instead go back and watch the parts of this particular sum in better films.
