A Northumbria University academic and child
psychologist has given his expert opinion on a newly premiered psychodrama film
starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, which sees her form an obsessive and predatory
relationship with a kindergarten student.
The Tyneside Cinema is currently screening
"The Kindergarten Teacher" which was released this month and has had screenings at Sundance
and Toronto International Film Festivals.
Academy Award nominated Gyllenhaal, from the acclaimed family of filmmakers and
entertainers of the same name, stars as Lisa Spinelli, a
kindergarten teacher and aspiring-poet fed up with her career, her oblivious
husband and teenage kids who largely ignore her. When she discovers that a
five-year-old in her class may be a poetic prodigy, Lisa becomes fascinated by
him and as such tries to protect him from what she believes are neglectful
parents. She soon finds herself risking her career and family to nurture, or
acquire, his talent.
Dr Markku Wood, who was invited by the
promoters of the film, Bird’s Eye View, to give his expert opinion on its
themes, is a Senior Lecturer and Consultant Clinical Child Psychologist at
Northumbria, and leads the University’s Children and Young People’s Improving
Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP-IAPT) project. The scheme is developing
and upskilling mental health practitioners who give mental health support to children
and young people in schools, the NHS and voluntary sector.
Dr Wood, who works within Northumbria’s Faculty
of Health and Life Sciences, joined an expert panel staged after the film to
share his insight and experience with Tyneside Cinema audiences alongside film
critic Kaleem Aftab and poet Be Manzini.
He said: “I really enjoyed being part of the
panel. The film describes the story of a kindergarten teacher who becomes
obsessed with a student who she believes is a child poet genius. She
continually violates boundaries and ethics by becoming too close to the child. These
boundary violations are small at first, but then progress to the point where
the teacher dissociates from her duty of care and loses insight into what she
is doing. It shows how, within the human condition, when you become obsessed
with something you can lose contact with the reality of what is happening from
an ‘outsider’s’ perspective.”
The panel was organised by Bird’s Eye View, an
agency that campaigns for gender equality in the film industry, as part of
their Reclaim The Frame project, which aims to grow audiences for films
told from the female point of view. As well as starring Gyllenhaal the film is
directed by Sara Colangelo.
Dr Wood added: “The implication in the film is
this could happen to anyone, it was the ‘perfect storm’ for the teacher. She is
unsatisfied with her job, her career and herself as a poetic hopeful. She’s
already vulnerable and in the midst having a ‘midlife crisis’, There are
gradual tipping points that take her behaviour beyond what is expected of her
in a position of trust.”
He believes the five-year-old boy in the film may
have had an autistic spectrum condition or could have been neglected, although
this was never addressed as part of the film’s narrative.
“The child shows almost no emotion during the
film. I wonder if the film
makers were implying that his genius might have been part of an autistic
spectrum condition or whether the child had indeed been neglected. Lack of
socially appropriate emotional expression can be present in both circumstances.
“Hollywood often portrays individuals on the
autistic spectrum in a very stereotypical manner such as in the 1988 American
drama Rain Man, however the presentation of the condition is often a lot more
subtle.”
The Kindergarten Teacher is showing at the Tyneside
Cinema until the end of March. Bird’s Eye View returns to the cinema in April
with another female-directed film yet to be confirmed.
