LFF 2025: Bad Apples ****

Image: BFI

Whenever approached by a family member and asked if I'd ever consider teaching as a career, I always respond with how I simply would not be able to keep my temper at bay around poorly behaved children. Now, I can skip the explanations and simply point to this film.

Bad Apples follows overwhelmed teacher Maria (Saoirse Ronan), recently dumped by fellow educator Sam (Jacob Anderson - a welcome presence, yet disappointingly written character), and tasked with handling a classroom of children that is often and severely disrupted by a single child. After a school trip where problem child Danny (an impressive debut performance by young actor Eddie Waller) throws his shoe into a conveyor belt at an apple farm, and later breaks the arm of teacher's pet Pauline (another excellent child debut performance from Nia Brown), Maria is chastised and informed that an ofsted inspection is due. With her career and sanity hanging by a thread, Maria decides to take matters into her own hands.

There is a good balance of dark humour and social commentary here: teachers routinely bear the brunt of a child's shortcomings; a slipped grade or generally poor academic performance and the teacher is to blame, regardless of whether they or the child is at fault.

Maria's hopelessness and exasperation is cemented by the setting: a nondescript location in rural England, where she's isolated emotionally and socially, yet surrounded by acquainted locals and nosy students. There is little respite. Maria serves as an interesting self destructive protagonist. She is undeniably a bad person, yet you empathise with her situation and she is likeable enough for you to root for her, even as her behaviour goes further down the drain. It's a truly fun and thrilling viewing experience that doesn't let up and keeps you guessing where the film will conclude. The exploration of teacher-student relationships (not like that!) and the unforgiving nature of the British education system saves it from a surface level, exploitation-esque fate, and just about saves the film from uneven pacing.

I'm eager to see how this will be received once it hits general release (which in this case looks to be sometime next year). Maybe the teachers of the UK will finally have something that makes them feel seen enough to point at and say "literally me" to.