★★★★☆
Teachers hold a complicated position in society. Rightfully, they are held by society to a higher standard of care, compassion, integrity and ethics. Yet society; parents, kids and government departments and employers often treat teachers with extraordinarily little respect, dignity and lack of access to resources.
Maybe this is why it is inexorably compelling, almost darkly delicious, to watch Bad Apples, a film which sees a sympathetic teacher cross over to the dark side.
Media has always been obsessed with depictions of morally corrupt and illegal sexual relationships between teachers and students. How many times has this trope been used in soap operas aimed at family or teenage viewers? Heartbreak High, Riverdale, numerous subplots on Neighbours or Home and Away, 90210, etc.
This is what separates Bad Apples from the usual bad/unethical teacher and student victim trope. Saoirse Ronan’s Maria is sympathetic and relatable throughout the entire story.
Set in a grimy and drab Bristol locale, Ronan’s Maria is a lonely, downhearted, marginalised primary school teacher who has all but completely lost her passion and drive, and who, with little resources, support and respect, is seen by everyone, herself included, as little more than a babysitter.
Nothing sums up her daily misery, her daily battle with existence more than Danny (Eddie Waller), the classroom bully, who we also find out later is incredibly vulnerable and more in need of help than anyone realises.
Danny’s constant antagonism against Maria and his fellow classmates distracts the other staff and students from realising their own potential. Day after day, her responsibilities fade from the other students to focus on stopping Danny from another prank, from bullying, from violence.
Maria is surrounded by contempt from colleagues, students and even local parents. There’s a sense of endless hopelessness, heartbreak and disappointment early in the film that director Jonatan Etzler effectively captures.
We all know someone who works in education or has a friend or relative who has kids in a similar situation. Test results are low, so funding is low. However, the film does not linger on this reality. Instead, the momentum starts to build to create an increasing sense of morbid curiosity and wicked, almost guilt-ridden satire.
You will laugh with and at the characters a lot in this film, and a lot of the time you will feel really ashamed for doing so.
After an act of violence carried out by Danny on one of his classmates, Maria feels responsible, and after a rather messy and violent encounter, Maria and Danny begin an almost symbiotic relationship; captor and captive, the punished and the punisher; both equally cruel and manipulating each other in equal measure.
There are hints of surrealism and the transgressive in the film, even when it reaches the edges of breaking the sense of reality or credibility. The groundwork is well founded so for the most part, the audience goes along with it.
Bad Apples, based on Rasmus Lindgren’s Swedish-language novel De Oönskade (The Unwanted), has a sharp British wit that would never work with an American filmmaker.
There is a true sense of luxuriating in the bleakness, of the dark turns and ugliness of the characters that only British filmmakers seem to relish in. Think Death at a Funeral, the original Lady Killers with Alex Guinness and Peter Sellars and even Hot Fuzz.
Bad Apples does take a lot from Hot Fuzz, especially when the parents and staff learn what has happened to Danny. At times you half expect them to all chime in and say, ‘the greater good’. But Etzler and screenwriter Jess O’Kane stop right on the edge of going too far into anything gory, shocking or completely disgusting.
Maria has done a truly awful and vile thing, yet Etzler and O’Kane seem to have their feet in both camps to either condemn or extol her. That moral ambiguity is, at times, also felt by the audience. You hate what she has done, but you can also see the justification of the act.
There’s some really nasty and mean-spirited comedy; it is a very British trope to have irredeemable characters that connect so much with the audience. Think Basil Fawlty or Edmund Blackadder; we connect with them because they can do what most of us only dream of doing.
We all revel in someone Breaking Bad, to use a long-worn-out phrase. We love Tony Soprano because he sleeps around, he drinks, he beats the crap out of anyone he wants to, because that’s what we all want to do.
Bad Apples hints at being the wish fulfilment of every teacher maligned, ignored, underpaid and overworked. I do wonder how many teachers really want to snap… or to be free to snap and get away with it?
Everyone involved in this film is firing on all cylinders. The symbolism of the apples haunts the audience throughout, from the opening shots to the ‘incident’ at the cider plant to the momentum that builds towards the end of the third.
Regarding the third act, there are a few scenes that seem a little unrealistic. There is no real understanding of the passage of time; how long has it been since the incident? Everything seems to be galloping towards an unresolved final twist. One does have questions about a few of the scenes. But of course, it is hard to go into without spoilers.
It does makes you wonder whether everything after the car park in the rain actually took place, or was it all in Maria’s (or even Danny’s) head?
I have not seen a lot of Ronan’s work, but I am really starting to believe a lot of the hype swirling around her. She plays a sociopath extremely well, and has a lot of emotional weapons in her acting arsenal. She expertly teases desperate, white-hot rage, boiling under the surface of her calm, quiet, mousey demeanour.
Both terrifying and sympathetic, often in the same breath, you can’t take your eyes off Ronan in every scene she is in. The audience’s attraction to Ronan is at times quite unsettling. How far will Maria go to hold onto the new life, the new creation of Maria she has made for herself?
Danny has almost We Need to Talk About Kevin vibe; it would be interesting to see a sequel about Danny post his interactions with Maria to see if he turns into a serial killer, using everything he has learnt from her. Waller is a powerful and horrifying young actor who I am sure will go on to amazing things as he gets older. Danny is a monster but also vulnerable and fragile. He is a child, after all.
As a debut performance, it almost steals the show from Ronan several times. And yet, strangely, Nia Brown’s nerdy-yet conniving and malicious teacher’s pet, Pauline, has a dark, manipulative manner that becomes almost terrifying. Several times you start wondering about her motives and her desires in class.
Ironically, Pauline is in a lot of ways the heart of the film. Most of her screen time shows an innocence and wonderment at the world around her, especially around Maria. At times, you think all three of them will become some kind of strange sociopathic family, a dark triad, but the narrative never gets that far.
Frustratingly, Bad Apples does dangle too many apples on the tree for all the subplots to be sufficiently resolved. Yet, that is also what gives the film its relatability, its freshness and its satire. The world they inhabit keeps changing, keeps twisting and turning right until the very end.
The Russell Hobbs British Film Festival opens on Wednesday 28 October in Sydney, Melbourne, Ballarat, Byron Bay, Canberra and Adelaide, Thursday 29 October in Brisbane and Thursday 5 November in Perth.
Tickets are on sale now at the website. Enter our competition to win a double pass here.
Tickets for Bad Apples: https://britishfilmfestival.com.au/films/bff26-bad-apples
Website: https://britishfilmfestival.com.au/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/britishfilmfest/
Watch the trailer here:
Film details:
Title: Bad Apples
Director: Jonatan Etzler
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Jacob Anderson, Robert Emms, Eddie Waller, Nia Brown, Rakie Ayola, Sean Gilder
Country of Origin: UK
Duration: 101 mins
Rating: MA15+
The Russell Hobbs British Film Festival presented by Palace screens in the following locations:
Canberra: 28 Oct – 29 Nov Palace Electric Cinemas
Adelaide: 28 Oct – 29 Nov, Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas, Palace Nova Prospect Cinemas
Melbourne: 28 Oct – 29 Nov, The Astor Theatre, Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Cinema Como, Palace Westgarth, Palace Penny Lane, The Kino, Pentridge Cinema, Palace Church St
Ballarat: 28 Oct – 29 Nov, Palace Regent Ballarat
Sydney: 28 Oct – 29 Nov, Palace Norton Street, Palace Moore Park, Palace Central
Byron Bay: 28 Oct – 29 Nov, Palace Byron Bay, Ballina Fair Cinemas
Brisbane: 29 Oct – 29 Nov, Palace Barracks, Palace James Street
Perth: 5 Nov – 6 Dec, Palace Raine Square, Luna on SX, Leederville and Windsor
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