One of the Most Eloquent Narratives the Language of Film Has Ever Related

Rating: Null/10 (22 August 2011)

Diabolical teacher Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz), an abrasive, rude and exceptionally vindictive woman is on a mission: get wasted, go through the motions of teaching middle school, get wasted, earn enough for new implants, get wasted, marry a rich dude who will take care of her, get wasted, destroy a perky rival Ms.Squirrel (Lucy Punch) and of course get wasted.
The public postulate on teachers is that they are underpaid, overworked and generally under-appreciated members of society on a collective mission very nearly looked upon as a charitable donation of time. That is a postulate not reflected in this movie.
Miss Halsey is presented as an exception to the reality - a composite of every parent's nightmare, one who by her very nature defines solipsism and provides an example so poor that Mussolini's teaching record looks exemplary by comparison. She wouldn't last the morning in a real school even as a sub.
The key thing to note about this film is the inverse moral scale. None of the people depicted are particularly virtuous though several are faking it. If you have kids in middle public school you might be a little disturbed by a film like this. Perhaps enough to consider home-schooling.
Think of Youtube videos where you see teachers going ballistic over kids cellphones (Anyone knows kids shouldn't have cellphones in class) ringing or stories about women who have sex with their students and you'll get an idea of the worst case scenario they are tapping into here.
There is always that fear in the back of the minds of parents about what educators are doing. Where this might be helpful is giving us a sense of the wrong kind of teacher.
Like a film that is, say a comedy about health-care this production mines an institution in crisis - in this case the education system - for comedy. There are a lot of comically subversive films out there but few actually invent new ways to be offensive the way this one does.