Reviews

One of the best Romanian movies of 2022, less a remake of Hannah Fidell's A Teacher than a retelling of the temptation of Eve by an amoral boy with mommy issues, a story of a woman whom we're not meant to judge, because everything around her is, from the start, just worse than than her one moment of weakness. A complex moral issue and a high-octane battle of ego vs. Faith, good nature vs. Unintentional evil. The innocents are bound to get hurt, but very few people are truly innocent in this film and everything is relative. The teacher is a religion teacher, but teaches philosophy (mostly) instead - even in Romania, a highly religious country, religion is almost banned from schools. Add to that an environment who judges women no matter what they do, a martyr complex and sexual frustration and you start to see why this teacher initially gives in to Iuliu's advances. Ours is a society which, during primetime hour, asks questions about women like "if she didn't want the pictures to get leaked, why did she take them during sex?", as if Radu Jude's Bad Luck Banging never even happened at all. We are a country with no healing in sight, but films like this at least invite viewers to some much-needed honest conversation (an opportunity which led me to discover that my own town was shook by the love story of a 24 year-old teacher and a 16 year-old male student which eventually ended in a happy marriage after the kid went to college - happy according to the very people which were initially appalled by such a prospect. (Legal) love truly conquers all, even past hypocrisy)