IT ONLY TAKES ONE.

In Sweden, we tend to be proud of the fact that we’ve always liked a darker British sense of humor. Perhaps we thought it makes us a bit more sophisticated. However, when it came time for the Swedish filmmaker Jonatan Etzler to pitch his idea for this movie, he faced an antsy resistance to the radical ideas in the novel that inspired Etzler. The climate was significantly more welcoming and understanding when he took his project to Britain. They saw the humor in the idea of a teacher locking up one of her students. The final results made it clear that Bad Apples was Sweden’s loss.

Under great pressure
Maria Spencer (Saoirse Ronan) is a primary-school teacher in Somerset, England. After an incident in a cider factory where her most unruly pupil, Danny (Eddie Waller), throws his sneaker into the apples and causes a malfunction, the school’s headmaster tells Maria that she needs to control her  pupils; it’s part of her job. Maria is under great pressure, also from parents who don’t seem to trust her, and she finds it very hard to make much of an impression on her class – with Pauline (Nia Brown) as an exception, a girl who adores her teacher.

After another incident, one that is significantly more serious, Danny is suspended from school. One late evening, Maria sees him vandalizing cars and interferes. One thing leads to another, and suddenly Maria finds herself locking the boy up in her basement. What to do now?

Relevant to most school systems
Etzler and his screenwriter Jess O’Kane share a past as teachers, a fact that makes this movie even more intriguing – and relevant as social satire. I don’t think anyone can work in a school and not ponder what would happen if the most troublesome students were removed from class, giving the other children the opportunity to settle down, focus and learn something. Rasmus Lindgren, who wrote the novel behind this film, obviously had the Swedish school system in mind; British schools are different in many ways, but the themes will resonate with audiences in many countries. O’Kane also finds a way to incorporate the British system to great effect later in the film, with Pauline defying the mandatory use of uniforms in a creepy way, a plot point that is startling both to Maria and us in the audience, because that’s when we realize just how unstable this girl might be.

There are many similar moments of tension where we ask ourselves where this story is headed. The fact that it is a comedy isn’t clear from the start; it looks more like a serious drama about primary school conflicts and how to deal with them, with Ronan’s character carrying a heavy burden. But from the moment when Maria locks the wildly hostile Danny up in her basement, the humor begins to seep into the story, which becomes increasingly twisted and funny, while maintaining its suspense.

Eddie Waller and Nia Brown are stupendously effective as the out-of-control Danny and the eerily enamored Pauline

We have peerless performances by Ronan as the teacher who’s really just as inept as the whole school when it comes to facing the challenges of her class, as well as young Waller and Brown who are stupendously effective as the out-of-control Danny and the eerily enamored Pauline.

We certainly enjoy the torments of Maria. But what elevates this film and makes it a must-see is how cleverly it presents a provocative illustration of a familiar dilemma and begs its audience to ponder what the real-world solutions might be. Seriously, how do we deal with children like Danny? How do you help them while also protecting other students from them? How do you maintain a good relationship with parents while also standing your ground as a teacher, resisting their worst instincts and demands?

Bad Apples 2026-U.S.-U.K. 101 min. Color. Directed by Jonatan Etzler. Screenplay: Jess O’Kane. Novel: Rasmus Lindgren (”De oönskade”). Cast: Saoirse Ronan (Maria Spencer), Eddie Waller (Danny), Nia Brown (Pauline), Jacob Anderson, Rakie Ayola, Robert Emms.

Last word: “I worked a bit as a film teacher who travelled around to different schools to teach children about how to make films, basically. It was like when you have a dancer coming to school teaching people how to dance, or things like that. It was great, and I really felt like I wanted to inspire them, but it was also kind of hard, you know? You go into that classroom with all those great intentions, but then you’re just run over by this group of uncontrollable children, basically. So that definitely was something that shaped me.” (Etzler, Film Focus Online)