Synopsis
A high school teacher in Austin, Texas takes sexual advantage over one of her students. Her life begins to unravel as the details of the relationship are exposed.
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Cast
- Lindsay BurdgeDiana Watts
- Will BrittainEric Tull
- Jennifer PredigerSophia
- Jonny MarsHunter Watts
- Julie Dell PhillipsJessica
- Chris DoubekEric's father
- Michael J. WilsonSophia's brother
- Hannah DannellyEric's Date to the Dance
Recommendations
- 80
The Hollywood Reporter
What makes the film work is that this potentially lurid material is treated at all times with sensitivity and probing psychological seriousness. - 75
The A.V. Club
By continually deferring dramatic tension, the filmmaker puts more weight on the movie’s closing scenes — which are abrupt but true to life — than they can handle. - 63
Observer
A Teacher is more in the vein of Michael Haneke’s brooding 2001 film, "The Piano Teacher." - 60
Film.com
Burdge is left to do much of the heavy lifting in terms of inviting the audience into her protagonist’s shaky state, and her performance boasts a remarkable emotional precision throughout — if ever there’s a reason to seek this one out, it would be for her. - 50
Slant Magazine
We're only allowed an insufficient glimpse of the anxiousness and curiosity that drive these creatures, a tactic which feels suspiciously like hesitance masquerading as enigma. - 50
The Dissolve
A Teacher feels a bit like watching some fool cross a busy freeway on foot over and over again for an hour and change. There’s little to do but await the inevitable splat. - 40
Variety
As first features go, A Teacher demonstrates a willingness to provoke, but doesn’t seem to understand the minimum expectations most audiences place on films in terms of both incident and characterization. - 40
Time Out
Less a master class in inappropriate high-school relationships than the CliffsNotes version, A Teacher isn’t going to tell you anything Nabokov or "Election" didn’t.
