MOVIES: Bad Apples (2025, Jonatan Etzler)

Maria (Saoirse Ronan) is an elementary school teacher in England; her students appear to be 11 or 12 years old. Her problem student is Danny (Eddie Waller), who is disruptive at best, violent at worst. After Danny breaks another student's arm, through a series of events too contrived to bother explaining, Maria winds up with Danny locked in her basement, and doesn't dare to release him for fear of the legal consequences. 

The movie's central joke, if we may call it that, is that with the "bad seed" removed from the classroom, the rest of Maria's students begin to shine, to the extent that Maria is singled out for praise after the annual government inspectors' visit.

That's a pretty bleak premise to begin with -- the way to successfully educate our kids is to lock the troublemakers away where they can't bother anyone -- and it takes an even bleaker turn late in the movie that turns the movie from a marginally tolerable dark comedy to so bleak a dystopian view of society that I was left with a sour taste in my mouth.

If you can stomach the premise, the central performances from Ronan and Waller aren't bad, and there is an unexpected sweetness in some of their scenes together. But I don't think that's reward enough to make it worth sitting through the movie's grotesque cynicism.