Here is a strange, heavy-handed and unpersuasive black comedy which owes what success it has to the star-power of its lead, Saoirse Ronan, who is incapable of giving an uninteresting performance. Director Jonatan Etzler has adapted it with co-screenwriter Jess O’Kane from a Swedish novel by Rasmus Lindgren called De Oönskade, or The Unwanted, and is a film that asks you to overlook its plot-holes and implausibilities on the grounds that it is a satire – but a satire saying what, exactly?
The scene is a primary school in the English West Country where Maria (Ronan) is a hardworking, idealistic teacher – but her class is hopelessly disrupted by a violent boy, Danny (Eddie Waller), obnoxious and out of control. He seriously injures another pupil, the nerdy teacher’s-pet Pauline (Nia Brown) whom Maria privately considers a bit annoying. After a chaotic visit to Danny’s home, Maria winds up causing the boy to lose consciousness with an accidental chokehold, and in a panic smuggles him back to her house where she imprisons him in her basement. And then, slowly but surely, the rest of the class, freed from Danny’s hateful presence, blossom and Maria gets a glowing Ofsted report. She looks and feels on top of the world. But what is to be done about her shameful secret?
