Bad Apples review – Saoirse Ronan’s dark, school-set satire doesn’t go far enough

Saoirse Ronan in Bad Apples. Photograph: Pulse Films

Though criminally underpaid and disrespected, teachers are nonetheless held to rigidly high standards of care, compassion and rectitude. They are to be exemplary stewards of our children, while unflinchingly enduring the battering of parents, administrators and outside agitators. Which is why it’s often so compelling, in a dark and squirmy way, to watch them break bad on film.

We have, of course, seen plenty of ill-advised (or illegal) sexual relationships between teacher and student, in myriad movies and TV programs. Beyond that hoary trope, though, we’ve observed with alarm the drug-addled overstepping of Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson; we’ve been guiltily thrilled by the obsessive opportunism of The Kindergarten Teacher; we’ve pried nosily into the shifty criminality of Hugh Jackman in Bad Education. These stories all present a grimly alluring vision: carefully maintained professionalism giving way to baser impulse.