Bad Teacher, good comedy

Rating: 8/10 (26 June 2011)

I saw this in a special presentation in a cinema full of teachers. And judging from their guffaws they seemed to enjoy the movie.
Liz is a brassy blonde who, at the end of her thirties, is on the verge of fulfilling her lifetime ambition: marrying a rich simpleton. But then his mum calls of the wedding, and Liz has to return to her reviled breadjob as a middle school teacher. To her never-ending amazement, all her other colleagues -- the middle-aged loner, the hippie, the preppy goody-two-shoed apple-cheeked nightmare -- seem to actually enjoy teaching spotty dropouts. The script does an excellent job of lining up every comedic angle of the dreary hell that is school life and linking it together with a fast-paced storyline. Cameron Diaz is excellent because she isn't afraid to actually look old, spent and wrinkled (but never unfoxy), and Phyllis Smith and Lucy Punch also stand out among the excellent cast. Justin Timberlake -- eye candy for the ladies, in case you wondered. The soppy, romantic, test-audience-compatible ending -- best ignored.
This is an enjoyable light-but-dark comedy that everybody who has had anything to do with school life can dig. And I hope that most people here have encountered a school at some part of their lives.