FILM OF THE WEEK: Bad Apples - Reviewed by Roe McDermott

Maria is living every teacher’s worst nightmare. A mild-mannered, idealistic primary school teacher working in the West Country, Maria (Saoirse Ronan) tries her best to be supportive and inspiring, but her class is continually disturbed by one uncontrollable student, Danny. She’s expected to control this budding sociopath, who constantly curses at her, causes chaos in class, damages industrial machinery while on school field tripes, and has inflicted grievous bodily harm on other students. Neither a psychologist, prison guard or wild animal trainer, Maria is unable to do so, and facing the constant wrath of her principal, other students’ parents and the threat of losing her job, Maria starts shrinking into herself; technically the adult in the room but feeling utterly helpless.

Her personal life is in a shambles too. She’s going through a break-up, her ex works in her school, so there’s no escaping the reminders of a failed relationship; and her heartbreak surrounds her at home, seeping through the walls of the boxy, modernist house that once held her dreams of a happy, love-filled life.

And soon, the dreams the house once contained are replaced by the unruly eleven year old boy she has locked in the basement.

Directed by Jonathan Etzler and adapted from a Swedish novel by Rasmus Lindgren, Bad Apples is a darkly funny deadpan satire that explores shifting power dynamics and how one bad decision can spiral into pathology. Ronan, utilising both her natural sincerity and her underrated comic timing, is sublime as Maria. Her initial scenes with Danny (superb newcomer Eddie Waller) have the flavour of an anxiety nightmare, and Maria’s mounting sense of dread and loss of control are captured not only in Chris Roe’s building, jangling score but the fear in Ronan’s wide-eyed horror.

When Danny “goes missing”, Maria joins search parties for him and sympathises with his devastated and overworked father. But she also notices how her other students begin to flourish. There’s calm in the class, she feels confident and in control of her life again, and the principal and school inspector start singing her praises. She is finally able to be the teacher she has always wanted to be, and her students love her for it.

Apart from Danny, of course.

The shifting power dynamics of the screenplay work beautifully because of Ronan’s central performance. Her vulnerability, sweetness and earnestness juxtapose with the reality of what she has done. She tries to treat Danny as if this is a predicament they’ve both simply found themselves in, trying to normalise it by speaking nicely to him, as if politeness is a replacement for being a good person.

But then, what is “good” really? What is good for the other students? What is good for society? What is good for a community when it’s being rotted from the inside by one person? And among the spectrum of violence, kidnapping, blackmail, traumatising one child and jeopardizing the future of an entire class full of them, can bad decisions sometimes do the most good, collectively?

These are the questions that Jess O’Kane’s screenplay poses. The fun comes from exploring our own dark impulses and sympathies, and seeing how individual and collective interests play out against each other. Danny and later, another character, are calibrated to evoke a similar feeling evoked by the child in The Babadook. They’re children who need protection.

But don’t you also kind of hate them? Don’t you understand feeling like the victim to their viciousness? Don’t you just want both of them to shut up?

In the first two acts, Etzler has tremendous fun slyly playing with amoral transgressions, the dynamics unfolding in ways that feel increasingly tense, unpredictable, and higher-stakes. Played against the gentle backdrop of small communities and brightly colourful classrooms, the story never sops feeling local and personal, pulling on our recognition of this world to elicit sympathy before we remember what’s actually happening her.

Despite the strong set-up, tje final act developments and satirical message of the film don’t quite land. Credibility becomes strained and the films’ spikiness never quite skewers any particular target. There are threads that could have made the film feel like a sharp critique of many things: a broken school system, the pressures on under-supported teachers and parents, and what it does to communities when competition over scant resources is fostered in early education. But without a particular focus, the film feels like unfinished lesson plan. It's full of ideas and moments and titbits, but lacking an overall focus, leaving students unsure of what they were supposed to take away from it.

But Ronan is brilliant, showing herself a fine comedic straight woman, and there’s much fun to be had along the way. Bite in, enjoy, find it all delicious – until you reach the worm.

Directed by Jonatan Etzler. Written by Jess O'Kane, based on the novel De Oönskade by Rasmus Lindgren. Cinematography by Nea Harnebrandt Asphäll. Edited by Robert Krantz. Music by Chris Roe. 100 mins. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Eddie Waller, Nia Brown, Jacob Anderson. 100 mins

• In cinemas now. Watch the trailer below: