The Oscar nominations were announced, and one of the films nominated for Best Foreign Film is “The Teacher’s Lounge” out of Germany. In some ways, it reminded me of one of the best movies of 2023 – “Anatomy of a Fall.” That film is a smartly written courtroom drama. This movie is a smartly written picture about a teacher who illegally sets up a camera to catch the culprit in a series of thefts at an elementary school, and the ramifications that follow. Under suspicion is a student of a different race, then a staff member that has a similar shirt, and a straight A student for a son.
I love watching a movie and realizing that all the characters are smart, and even in stressful circumstances, have conversations or arguments that feel real and are interesting. So many movies just go over the top. It’s also thought provoking, as you think about what you’d do in certain situations. I mean, we’ve all heard stories on the news about a person who got sick of their lunch being stolen at work, so they put something in it that made the culprit sick. And the thief ends up suing. A situation in this movie reminded me of that (don’t want to give any spoilers). It’s also refreshing that while dealing with an immigrant family, the filmmakers aren’t preachy. Just as we have Oscar speeches that do this, it’s also frustrating when movies do it if it doesn’t organically fit in the narrative.
Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a young teacher, and she’s got her heart in the right place. She’s going above and beyond for her students. We see her gently giving her colleagues grief if she doesn’t agree with their methods of interrogating students about the recent thefts, or other problems at the public school. When we see her at a parent-teacher conference and some parents get heated, we realize that being a new teacher might mean she’s in a bit over her head with everyone she’s going to be dealing with in this story.
The third act didn’t quite work for my wife and I, and I really disliked the final scene. In some ways, this made me think of two much better movies; Election (Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon), which was directed by Alexander Payne [side note: people naively saying Greta Gerwig was snubbed for an Oscar nod for “Barbie,” but Payne didn’t get a nomination and his movie “The Holdovers” was much better].
I also thought of the movie “The Hunt” (Mads Mikkelsen), which was one of my favorites of 2012. That deals with a kindergarten teacher falsely accused of molesting a girl. Hunt that film out and thank me later.
This movie could have been better, and I liked it more than my wife did.
3 stars out of 5.