TV Review - A Teacher (2020)

Writer-director Hannah Fidell created A Teacher (2013), an independent film about a male high school student who has a sexual affair with his female English teacher. This series is an adaptation of that film. The series fleshes out the situation and provides more in-depth details to this inappropriate to illegal relationship. However, it's not as simple as transferring the relationship from the film to the series. Fidell and her writers re-imagine the relationship in some ways weakening the nuance and complications of the film. The film has grey areas or some might criticize them as being vague areas where Fidell made certain leaps in the narrative or had certain gaps that she either couldn't or didn't want to bridge. Here, she fills in those gaps or bridges them so that there are fewer leaps. Here, she walks us through step-by-step as to how this kind of relationship could develop in today's world, a relationship that would technically be considered sexual harassment.

Each episode opens with a disclaimer about the depiction of "grooming." Grooming is a term mainly associated with pedophilia. Grooming is what a pedophile does in order to get a child into a sexual situation. Usually, it involves befriending the child and the people around the child in order to gain trust. It involves making some kind of emotional connection, getting the child to bond and be more "comfortable" during more intimate or physical situations. Usually, the child is prepubescent, but, here the child is a 17-year-old boy. Despite being close to consensual age, his relationship with his teacher would still be considered sexual abuse, and seeing how a teenage boy could be lured into this scenario does have some value.

Kate Mara (Pose and House of Cards) stars as Claire Wilson, a high school teacher in Austin, Texas. Nick Robinson (Love, Simon and Jurassic World) co-stars as Eric Walker, the student in question who is a senior, about to graduate and go to college. I feel as though it would be helpful to point out the differences between the relationship depicted between them and the relationship depicted in the film.

For starters, the actor playing the student here feels older than the actor playing the student in the film. Robinson is currently 25 and was probably 24 when this series was made. Will Brittain who played the student in the film was 22 when he made the film, possibly 21. It might not seem like much of an age difference, but Brittain comes across as so much younger, more naive and honestly more child-like. He certainly comes across more as a horny teenager whose interests seem more prurient than romantic. That's not the case here, Robinson's version of this character seems older. Robinson was last seen in a project where he played a college student. In other ways, his character seems more mature but Fidell and her writers have also characterized him as not just being a horny teenager but more of a romantic guy who is falling in love with this older woman. I didn't get that Brittain's version was falling in love.

Unlike the film, Claire is married. She has an age-appropriate husband from the beginning. In the film, the teacher was single. Here, Claire is very much in a committed relationship. Ashley Zukerman (Succession and Designated Survivor) plays Matt Mitchell, the husband to Claire, a man who is Claire's age or possibly older. He's very much a grown man and he has a steady job. He seems like a very good guy. They might be a little bit at odds over the fact that he wants to have a baby and she doesn't. She doesn't want to be tied down right now, as it were, but he has a passion for playing music and being in a band with his friends, so he has a fun streak too. I suppose maybe Claire is just a bit bored with him.

Another difference between the film and this series is that the power dynamic between Claire and Eric feels greater here than in the film. For example, Eric doesn't have a car, so he's more reliant on her to get around. In the film, the student had his own car and I think it was a SUV. In the film, the student came from a family that was a bit well-off financially. He came from a family that wasn't rich but seemed to be doing fine money-wise. Plus, the film version had the student come from a stable home where the father was at home and the parents were likely still together. Here, Eric comes from a bit of a broken home or he seems to have only his single mother. Plus, Eric's family seems to be a bit impoverished. Eric's family isn't totally struggling, but his family doesn't seem as well-off as Claire. This makes Eric more vulnerable and paints him more of a victim, making the series feel more black-and-white than the film.

Finally, this series differs from the film in the dispositions of the two characters. Here, Eric eventually gets to a place where he tells Claire that he loves her and it feels genuine. In the film, the student never comes off as being in love with his teacher. The film version never really elevates the relationship into anything romantic. It always felt like a tryst that leaned more on the lustful aspects and the excitement of doing something naughty. It gets to a point where the teacher might feel more romantic and loving feelings, but it's eventually played as pathetic and desperate on her part. Here, Claire isn't really coming off as pathetic or desperate. She's slightly creepy and lecherous, but Mara's performance balances it, so that she doesn't appear as much as the predator that she is. Yet, in a lot of ways, that's probably the point, which probably makes Claire more insidious, even if she doesn't realize it.

Rated TV-MA-LS.
Running Time: 30 mins. / 10 eps.

Available on Hulu.