One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch – that’s the expression, and when people use it, they’re usually not actually talking about fruit. While Bad Apples does begin with one student putting his shoe on the conveyor belt during a tour of a factory producing apples, its title makes reference to that student, who has the capacity to singlehandedly disrupt the classroom environment for everyone. Acknowledging that there’s a problem is just the first step, and this film follows its protagonist down an unfortunate rabbit hole of questionable decisions that, legality and morality aside, does seem to significantly improve the situation.
After Danny (Eddie Waller) ruins the field trip, Maria (Saoirse Ronan) is at her wit’s end, denied the support she desperately needs to deal with him and warned that her inability to get things under control in her classroom will reflect poorly on her. Even pushing his classmate Pauline (Nia Brown) down the stairs only gets him a suspension his frazzled dad Josh (Robert Emms) probably won’t even find time to enforce. When Maria confronts Danny during another act of violence and things get out of hand, she panics and conceives of a new solution: lock him in her basement so he can’t bother his classmates anymore.
This film requires tremendous suspension of belief, but its score and the comedy laced into each scene make it clear that this isn’t some true story come to life. Instead, it’s a scenario that could populate dreams or nightmares, depending on the person, and it only continues to spiral out of control and with each step Maria takes to cover up what she’s done. Danny is a terror so there’s a sense that he deserves what happens to him, and it’s not like she doesn’t feed him pesto pasta and order him a harness off the internet to wear so that he can move around somewhat freely and she doesn’t need to worry about him trying to lunge at her and escape.
Based on the novel De Oönskade by Rasmus Andersson, this film features a storyline that could be completely objectionable and may in fact be extremely off-putting to some. But the way that it’s portrayed makes clear that it’s not meant to be seen as something that would actually happen, a screwball comedy of sorts without any hint of romance and a pitch-black tone. Maria is quite sweet, and the fact that she’s keeping a child in her basement, however much of a problem kid he is, suggests that audiences should be wary of just how much she’ll use the potential ends of tranquility and the greater good to justify whatever means she feels are necessary.
Ronan, no stranger to the Toronto International Film Festival, is just thirty-one years old and already has four Oscar nominations to her name. This part is definitely less serious than much of her recent fare, especially last year’s double feature of Blitz and The Outrun, but it’s wonderful to see her embracing the comedy she’s shown such good instincts for in Lady Bird and The French Dispatch. Her formidable career is a positive inspiration for Waller and Brown, who both seem so natural in their first screen credits, and the way they portray the two students most on Maria’s mind sets the tone for the entire film. It’s best not to take this film as an endorsement of any of its content or that this is how to deal with kids who just won’t listen, but it is a fun exercise in tightrope-walking that smartly leans into absurdity rather than logic, making it a riotously entertaining watch.
Movie Rating: 8/10
