I found the storyline of this movie appealing (I like works of art that are happy to admit some people enjoy their comfortable routine lives and do not crave "excitement" and "adventure"). Julianne Moore was as gorgeous as always, and portrayed her character's range of experiences well. BUT Two big flaws:
The first flaw comes towards the end of the movie. We've built up this fraught and tense situation where Ms Sullivan has burned all her bridges. She returns to school, mocked by the students and tremendously embarrassed. We then basically jump forward three weeks to a totally different social environment where she appears to be once-again respected and integrated into the school. WTF? How did that happen? The answer we get is a complete cop-out. It's hinted that some combination of "grin and bear it" on her part and the awesome ending she wrote for the play did the job, but, seriously, that is not how the world works. Teenagers are freaking monsters, not to forget that she earned (for good reason) the enmity of one of them whom she tried to destroy. That's all not going to go away, and pretending that it does destroys any pretense the movie has to somehow commenting on life.
The second flaw is not as serious, but the voice-over in the last few minutes is ham-fisted as all heck. It's totally unnecessary, totally idiotic. Throughout the movie (including commentary about the play) we've been told about nuance, about filling in the blanks, about the audience making inferences, then we get this stupidity!
The first flaw comes towards the end of the movie. We've built up this fraught and tense situation where Ms Sullivan has burned all her bridges. She returns to school, mocked by the students and tremendously embarrassed. We then basically jump forward three weeks to a totally different social environment where she appears to be once-again respected and integrated into the school. WTF? How did that happen? The answer we get is a complete cop-out. It's hinted that some combination of "grin and bear it" on her part and the awesome ending she wrote for the play did the job, but, seriously, that is not how the world works. Teenagers are freaking monsters, not to forget that she earned (for good reason) the enmity of one of them whom she tried to destroy. That's all not going to go away, and pretending that it does destroys any pretense the movie has to somehow commenting on life.
The second flaw is not as serious, but the voice-over in the last few minutes is ham-fisted as all heck. It's totally unnecessary, totally idiotic. Throughout the movie (including commentary about the play) we've been told about nuance, about filling in the blanks, about the audience making inferences, then we get this stupidity!