“A
45-year-old spinster with a mundane
life absorbs herself with her much-loved
job as an English teacher, but her daily
routine is disrupted and her life turned
inside out when she offers to read a
manuscript for a play written by a former
pupil in the hilarious film The English
Teacher...”
ACCEPTING OF HER PREDICTABLY DULL days, forty-something spinster Linda Sinclair
(Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore: Hunger Games
Mockingjay; Crazy, Stupid Love) teaches English at Kingston High School
in Kingston, Pennsylvania, not far from where she was born.
But her monotonous life as a loner hides a passionate and romantic side that
seems doomed never to be revealed as she searches fruitlessly for a significant
other. As each potential partner arrives, she marks him mentally as if marking
her pupils.
“The
English Teacher
is a brilliantly creative,
funny and highly
entertaining film...”
One
evening, believing she is about to be mugged at a cash machine, she fires pepper
spray at a young man in a hoodie before realising that he is a former pupil,
Jason Sherwood (Michael Angarano: Almost Famous), who left Kingston for
New York University where he graduated in Dramatic Writing but has failed in
his attempt to get a play he has written accepted.
Jason has written The Chrysalis, which he claims is based on his own
experiences and Linda offers to read his work, becoming so enthusiastic that
she is determined to persuade the school to put on the play. She now has an
exciting role to play that releases the passion and the verve lacking in her
life.
Having convinced Drama teacher Carl Kapinas (Nathan Lane: The Birdcage),
they both go to see Principal Trudie Slocam (Jessica Hecht) and Vice Principal
Phil Pelaski (Norbert Leo Butz), who insist the controversial ending is changed
and that if the production goes over budget, Linda will foot the bill. Linda
foolishly agrees, knowing that Jason is precious about his work being altered
and not realising that the costs will spiral.
Carl organises the cast, with Halle Anderson (Lily Collins: Mirror, Mirror;
Stuck In Love) and Will Trainer (Charlie Saxton) in the lead parts, but
following a misunderstanding with Jason's father Dr Tom Sherwood (the consistently
wonderful Greg Kinnear: Little Miss Sunshine; Stuck In Love) and an indiscretion
that leads to her dismissal from the job she loves, Linda finds herself the
subject of school gossip and at loggerheads with Jason.
Will Linda be able to get her life back in order and find love at last? The
English Teacher is a brilliantly creative, funny and highly entertaining
film with an occasional, amusing narration by Fiona Shaw (Harry Potter).
The English Teacher also features: Nikki Blondski as Sheila Nussbaum
and Sophie Curtis as Fallon Hughes. Music is by Rob Simonsen; Music Supervisor
is Linda Cohen; Director of Photography is Vanja Cernjul; Produced by Naomi
Despres, Robert Salerno, Ben LeClair and Matthew Chausse; Executive producers
include Ron Curtis and Philippe Chausse; and Directed by Craig Zisk, whose impressive
television work includes Weeds, Scrubs and the Emmy Award-winning
The Big C. *The
English Teacher will be released on DVD in the UK from Kaleidoscope Home
Entertainment on 3 March 2014. Catalogue Number: KAL8327 | RRP: £15.99.
"The English Teacher is a brilliantly creative, funny and highly entertaining
film" —Maggie Woods
“A
45-year-old spinster with a mundane