MOVIE OF THE WEEK January 5, 2024: THE TEACHER’S LOUNGE
Leonie Benesch gives a stellar performance as teacher Carla Nowak in director Ilker Çatak’s tense German drama The Teacher’s Lounge. Pulled in opposing directions by her desire to do the right thing for her young students and the pressure to support the school and its procedures, Carla is barely able to hold herself together — and Benesch conveys that stress and insecurity with every expression that crosses her face.
Recently arrived in her German secondary school classroom from Poland, Carla would like nothing more than to focus on teaching her students (who are all around 12 years old) the finer points of math proofs. But when one of the kids is suspected of being behind a series of thefts from teachers — and his parents believe that the accusation may be the result of racial profiling — she ends up trying something bold, which has more fallout than she ever anticipated. She leaves her wallet unattended in the teacher’s lounge with her laptop camera recording; when she returns, money is missing, and the video footage suggests a surprising thief.
As accusations and denials fly fast and furiously, the situation snowballs, and Carla is caught smack in the middle. Parents are angry, students are angry, teachers and administrators are angry, and Carla is distraught about the impact it all might have on Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch), one of her most promising — and most vulnerable — students. (Stettnisch is excellent in the role, as are many of the other non-actor children playing the school’s students.) She questions her choices and decisions and wishes things could play out differently.
Çatak directs Benesch adeptly: They both lean into Carla’s complicated feelings about everything happening at this school she’s still getting used to. Punctuated by Jonathan Feurich’s spiky, insistent score, the movie raises thorny questions that will leave viewers, like Carla, thinking and questioning what they would do in similar circumstances. Do children have the same right to privacy and autonomy as adults? Do covert recordings violate privacy rights if they prove a crime has taken place? Is a teacher’s first job to support their students or to support their school? There’s no easy answer to any of these complicated queries, which is part of the reason The Teacher’s Lounge is such an affecting film.– Betsy Bozdech
Team #MOTW’s comments:
Pam Grady: Tensions at school are already high in Ilker Çatak’s engrossing drama when a teacher’s sleuthing further inflames the students while jeopardizing the teacher’s standing with both her charges and her colleagues. Leonie Benesch delivers an outstanding performance as Carla Nowak, an idealist who is outraged after one of her students is wrongly accused of a series of thefts. Tired of the constant suspicion and the pressure being put on kids to finger the perpetrator, Ms. Nowak sets up a video sting, which blows up spectacularly. The film is a sharply etched exploration of just how good intentions can lead to terrible outcomes made worse by the way Ms. Nowak completely mishandles the situation. She was righteous enough to want to identify the thief but when the revelation creates more problems than it solves, her silence, denials, and obfuscations make her appear as guilty as the person accused. The film is a cautionary tale, although it can be hard to tell whether the lesson is to not throw around accusations without absolute proof or to skip the burnout and not go into teaching at all.
Leslie Combemale The Teacher’s Lounge takes issues like the perpetration of stereotypes, the malleability of truth, the challenges of the educational system and the growing feelings of alienation that plague modern society and examines them through one cautionary tale.
Leonie Benesch plays Carla Nowak, a teacher working at a junior high where the faculty is dealing with petty theft. A little money, some pencils, and other small items have been disappearing. Carla takes it upon herself to try to suss out the culprit, but it leads to accusations, bad feelings, and worse, with members of both the faculty and student body. That may not sound like its 98 minutes are all high pressure, but in director/co-screenwriter Ilker Çatak’s capable hands, they are. Read full review
Jennifer Merin The Teacher’s Lounge is an extraordinary well realized and gripping drama about a school teacher whose commitment to doing the right thing leads her into the thick of a personal disaster. The compelling narrative raises issues about the dangers of cultural profiling and prejudice, the abuse results from the systemic differences in degrees of power and the question of pitting individual rights vs the interests of a community. Leonie Benesh’s breathtaking performance as Carla, the Polish teacher who is newly arrived in Germany, is backed up by writer/director Ilkur Catak’s ensemble of non-actor 13 year old kids. There is an authentic tension that is palpable. Carla’s despair escalates to the breaking point.
Sandie Angulo Chen: As a movie critic who moonlights at a high school, I can say that The Teacher’s Lounge effectively demonstrates the way that young, idealistic educators can make well-intentioned mistakes. Director İlker Çatak’s compelling drama stars a revelatory Leonie Benesch as Carla Nowak, a new middle-school teacher at a German secondary school where a string of thefts are blamed on students until she shifts the blame to a faculty member. There’s much to unpack in the thought-provoking film, which doesn’t provide easy answers and forces viewers to consider issues of justice, education, and unconscious bias.
Loren King Ilker Catak’s The Teachers’ Lounge takes a misunderstanding compounded by missteps by well-meaning new teacher Carla Nowak (the superb Leonie Benesch) in a German school and builds itinto a masterful meditation on institutions with all their petty cliques and how adherence to rules can spiral into authoritarianism. The film is not only a compelling, impeccably acted story but also a stunning allegory about conformity and shifting power dynamics.
Liz Whittemore Ms. Carla Nowak is a first-year teacher trying to reach her students and fit in with the staff. When a child gets accused of theft, Carla’s best intentions cause a spiral of events affecting the entire school. The Teachers’ Lounge is a battle between work politics and the protective intuition of the job. Clever class dialogue foreshadows the dramatic dynamics Carla finds herself caught up in. Teacher and student behavior mirror one another as The Teachers’ Lounge becomes increasingly tense and emotionally chaotic. Leonie Benesch plays Carla with the grace and complexity accompanying modern-day teaching. You don’t go into the profession for money or fame. You do it to break through to kids who need it most. But times have changed. The age of parents supporting the adults in the room has somehow morphed into zero accountability for students. Benesch commands the screen with a brilliant mix of tenderness and firm authenticity. She navigates this emotional roller coaster like a star. When you think the screenplay could not get more explosive, writers Johannes Duncker and Ilker Çatak (who also directs) repeatedly prove you wrong. The Teachers’ Lounge vividly portrays the volatility of the profession. Teachers and administrators everywhere will sweat watching this film. I can speak from experience. I don’t miss it one bit. Then and now, you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t.
Cate Marquis A series of school thefts turns the teachers’ lounge into a gossipy pit, in the suspenseful German-language thriller The Teachers’ Lounge, in which an idealistic teacher tries to clear a student of their suspicions, a well-meaning decision that unleashes unexpected chaos. This smart parable about good intentions has a well-crafted script that builds up suspense, complexity and a morally murky morass that finally threatens to tragically upend lives, a powerful drama also topped with a strong performance by Leonie Benesch as the teacher.
FILM DETAILS:
Title: The Teacher’s Lounge
Director: Ilker Çatak
Release Date: December 25, 2023 (limited)
Running Time: 98 minutes
Language: German with English subtitles
Screenwriters: Johannes Duncker and Ilker Çatak
Distribution Company: Sony Pictures Classics
AWFJ Movie of the Week Panel Members: Sandie Angulo Chen, Betsy Bozdech, Leslie Combemale, Nikki Fowler, Pam Grady, Loren King, Cate Marquis, Jennifer Merin, Nell Minow, Sherin Nicole, Liz Whittemore
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Edited by Jennifer Merin
