"The Kindergarten Teacher (2014 release from Israel; 120 min.) brings the story of Nira, a kindergarten teacher, and Yoav, a 5 yr. old boy in her class. As the movie opens, we see Nira talking to her husband about the remarkable gift the boy has, spewing poetry at any given time. The boy's nanny confides that she is using the boy's poets at her auditions. Meanwhile, Nira and the boy grow ever closer. To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.
Couple of comments: this is the second movie from up-and-coming writer-director Nadav Lepid, who previously brought us "Policeman". In the DVD extras, he discloses in an interview that the story is mostly auto-biographical, to my surprise. Turns out that Lepid as a young boy went around proclaiming poetry out of nowhere. As to the relationship between Nira and the boy, once it becomes clear how protective she feels about the boy, the only question that remains is how far she will take it... The two main characters are portrayed beautifully by Sarit Larry as Nira, and even more impressive is Avi Schnaidman as the young boy. In the director's interview in the DVD bonus materials, he explains how they went about casting for the role of the young boy.
I don't think this movie ever saw a US theatrical release 9and if it did, it never came to Cincinnati), which is a darn shame. I picked this up while browsing the foreign movie section at my local library. I continue to be impressed with the quality of movies coming out of Israel. For such a small country, they sure do have some great movies. If you are in the mood for a high-quality "all talk, no action" movie, you cannot go wrong with "The Kindergarten Teacher".
