It only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch, but in “Bad Apples,” the teacher may be the biggest problem. After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Paramount Pictures UK has released a new trailer for Jonatan Etzler’s dark comedy thriller, led by Saoirse Ronan as Maria, a dedicated but increasingly overwhelmed primary school teacher trying to keep a class of 10-year-olds together while one disruptive student makes that nearly impossible.
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Without much support, Maria makes a disastrous choice: she takes the child home and locks him inside her house. Worse, once he disappears, her class starts to thrive, turning a panicked mistake into a grimly absurd moral trap.
“Bad Apples” is written by Jess O’Kane and adapted from Rasmus Lindgren’s novel “De Oönskade.” The film marks Etzler’s English-language debut after his Swedish comedy “One More Time,” and it looks like he’s trading time-loop sentimentality for a much nastier classroom nightmare.
Etzler is best known for the Swedish Netflix time-loop comedy “One More Time” and the award-winning short “Get Ready With Me,” with “Bad Apples” marking his English-language feature debut. Here, he seems to be trading high-concept comedy for something nastier: a classroom satire about institutional failure, parental denial, and one teacher’s very bad solution to a very bad kid.
Joining Ronan in the cast are Eddie Waller, Nia Brown, Jacob Anderson, Rakie Ayola, Robert Emms, Sean Gilder, and Kerry Howard. “Bad Apples” opens in UK and U.S. cinemas September 18. Watch the trailer below.
Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2008. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
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