Bad Apples (15)
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Rakie Ayola, Jacob AndersonGenre: Comedy
Author(s): Jess O'Kane
Director: Jonatan Etzler
Release Date: 18/09/2026
Running Time: 101mins
Country: UK
Year: 2025
Mild-mannered primary school teacher Maria Spencer struggles to recover from a break-up from work colleague Sam. More pressingly, an Ofsted inspection is due and one of Maria's pupils, 10-year-old Danny, is a feral, profanity-spewing harbinger of chaos who gleefully disrupts lessons. Frustration boils over and Maria personally intervenes in one of Danny's violent outbursts. The boy threatens to go to the police and the frazzled educator kidnaps Danny and holds him hostage in her basement.
LondonNet Film Review
Bad Apples (15) Film Review from LondonNet
One bad apple can rot the crop but in director Jonatan Etzler’s warped black comedy, adapted by screenwriter Jess O’Kane from Rasmus Lindgren’s novel De Oonskade, it’s unclear whether any of the characters are good apples. On the surface, the schoolteachers who roam the corridors and classrooms of Bad Apples are hard-working pillars of the community. But dark, uncharitable thoughts percolate behind placative smiles…
Mild-mannered primary school teacher Maria Spencer (Saoirse Ronan) struggles to recover from a break-up from work colleague Sam (Jacob Anderson). Some of his belongings are still in her house. More pressingly, an Ofsted inspection is due and one of Maria’s pupils, 10-year-old Danny (Eddie Waller), is a feral, profanity-spewing harbinger of chaos who gleefully disrupts lessons. Unsympathetic headmistress Sylvia (Rakie Ayola) advises Maria to take charge of the situation and the beleaguered teacher visits Danny’s father Josh (Robert Emms). He is too busy working as a delivery driver to pay close attention to his son’s unruly behaviour. Frustration boils over and Maria personally intervenes in one of Danny’s violent outbursts.
The boy threatens to go to the police and claim Miss Spencer assaulted him, so the frazzled educator kidnaps Danny and holds him hostage in her basement. She restrains him like a wild animal until he is calm enough for private tuition. Danny’s absence has a positive effect on the other children and Maria wonders if her deranged actions might inspire change. “You seem to be coming out of your shell and you look good,” Sam compliments Maria, emboldening her resolve. When sycophantic class swot Pauline (Nia Brown) discovers the dark secret in Maria’s basement, the scheming tyke exploits the situation to grant herself special privileges in the classroom.
Bad Apples is an entertaining romp through a moral quagmire, which doesn’t push its gnarly central premise beyond the limits of comfort. There is clear potential for O’Kane’s script to propel Maria beyond a point of no return and witness her mental disintegration in excruciating and exquisite close-up. However, just as the picture’s sharp teeth are bared and glistening, Etzler chooses to nibble rather than eviscerate. Wildness and unpredictability flicker in Ronan’s eyes and her emotionally charged scenes with young co-stars Waller and Brown have moments of uncertainty that prickle the skin.
The film’s final act twists a narrative knife to the core and introduces potential new heroes and villains to the fray, but tension rapidly dissipates because characters’ fates are abruptly taken out of their own hands. The suspension of disbelief required in the opening hour pales next to the brow-furrowing chain of events that seeks to resolve young Danny’s fate and punish or reward Maria’s reckless actions. Bad Apples crumbles.
– Kim Hu
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