The English Teacher

A great cast but not at all what I was expecting, in the worst possible way. Even Greg Kinnear, whom I love, couldn't save this one. I also really like Nathan Lane but clearly the role wasn't for him. Julianne Moore's character was just naive and stupid, nearly forcing a former student to allow the school to perform his play. It's one thing to be encouraging but quite another to be borderline obsessive. And of course her relationship with this student was a huge turn off. I watched about a half hour before I decided that I'd had enough. The previews failed to show just how bad this movie really is. No wonder I'd never heard of it.

A great cast but not at all what I was expecting, in the worst possible way. Even Greg Kinnear, whom I love, couldn't save this one. I also really like Nathan Lane but clearly the role wasn't for him. Julianne Moore's character was just naive and stupid, nearly forcing a former student to allow the school to perform his play. It's one thing to be encouraging but quite another to be borderline obsessive. And of course her relationship with this student was a huge turn off. I watched about a half hour before I decided that I'd had enough. The previews failed to show just how bad this movie really is. No wonder I'd never heard of it.

You can't tell a book by it's cover, nor a DVD. This movie was a lot better than I was expecting and mostly due to Julianne Moore's brilliant performance. She does both comedy and drama so well. It is a funny look back at high school and that inspiring teacher who dedicated maybe too much of her life to her teaching. She's a little too caught up in all that literature has too offer. Then she meets up with a former student who is back from New York City with a racy play he has written. She intrigued. The lines between helping inspire youth and letting your hair down get crossed and Ms. Sinclair crosses some of her tightly defined boundaries. Michael Angarano, as the young man, and Greg Kinnear, as his dad, are also good as is Nathan Lane as the bombastic drama teacher.

I didn't enjoy this movie.

I shouldn't have been surprised that in Hollywood the only reason to make a movie about a FEMALE teacher is so a student could have sex with her. Don't we have enough stories about sexual predators and way too many about Hollywood moguls living out their perverted fantasies? Could have been a really good movie. It wasn't.

Enjoyed this movie very much...kept me guessing about where it was going!