Kindergarten Teacher, The

About the movie

Stuck in Staten Island, married to a kind but oblivious husband, and living with kids that mostly ignore her, 40-year-old Lisa Spinelli (Maggie Gyllenhaal) plods through her days teaching kindergarten with growing numbness. Her one source of joy is an evening poetry class across the bay in Lower Manhattan. But one day everything changes—Lisa discovers that a five-year-old boy in her class may be the poet she can only dream of being. She becomes fascinated. Could this child be a prodigy? A Mozart? Fascination turns to obsession as Lisa pushes boundaries to protect the boy from a banal life she knows too well.
Benevolent protection of a prodigy, or obsession beyond all reason, is the question at issue – when Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Maggie Gyllenhaal propels every moment of this mysterious film with the beguiling tour-de-force performance of a lifetime.
“Wonderfully sensitive – a chance to see Maggie Gyllenhaal give one of the best performances of her career.” – The Guardian
“Maggie Gyllenhaal Delivers an A+ Performance in a Tense Moral Thriller” – IndieWire
“Rippling with psychological complexity and sneaky humor” – The Hollywood Reporter

Participating