Maria Spencer (Saorise Ronan) is a teacher at a primary school in Somerset. She is a mild mannered and dedicated but is close to losing her job because one unruly pupil, Danny (Eddie Waller), is so disruptive the learning of all the other pupils in her class is suffering. One day, Maria catches Danny vandalising her car. Trying to restrain him, she accidentally knocks him out. On the way to hospital he threatens to tell the police she carried out an unprovoked attack on him. She panics, takes him to her house and locks him in the basement.
As that suggests, the biggest problem with this film are the significant implausibilities. Danny is more of a psychopath than a troublesome kid and none of the other teachers seem to be concerned about his behaviour. Even when he pushes a classmate downstairs and she ends up in hospital, it is Maria who is going to held responsible. Then, as time passes, it is increasingly unlikely that Maria would successfuly keep him locked up.
However, even bearing that in mind, Bad Apples largely works. After The Good Boy earlier this year, Jonatan Etzler’s film, written by Jess O’Kane, could have felt overly familiar. There were the same mixed feelings about whether the victim deserved his punishment, but it was sufficiently different to feel fresh. The dark comedy elements are ramped up towards the end to a point where there are a number of laugh out loud moments.
I enjoyed the added element that a seemingly perfect pupil, Pauline, played with toe-curling intensity by Nia Brown, can be almost as difficult to deal with as Danny. Waller is suitably unpleasant, but, of course, it is the fantastic Ronan who dominates proceedings. She deftly shows her transformation from being meek to confident, keeping her character sympathetic and believable, no matter how outrageous her actions.
Bad Apples is at times excruciating to watch and often sharply satirical.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10