When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her.

Germany’s entrant (and nominee) for ‘Best International Feature Film’ at this year’s Oscars is a tense, taut thriller about a teacher who finds herself caught up in drama at her new school when tasked with finding out who is responsible for a series of thefts. It begins in a classroom where a group of children in Ms. Nowak’s (Leonie Benesch) class are being questioned about items that have gone missing from the teachers’ lounge, with a couple of Ms. Nowak’s fellow teachers forcing the male students to turn in their wallets for inspection. This leads to a situation where an individual is accused, causing issues with his parents and fostering discontent amongst the other students in the class at their fellow students treatment.

The movie progresses from this initial setup to explore the thefts and the impact when Ms. Nowak believes she has caught the perpetrator in the act, leading to a series of consequences that reverberate on both the teaching community and the students of the school. The school ecosystem and the way this story is told acts as a microcosm of society in general, particularly with respect to the different attitudes and approaches to dealing with the situation by the teachers and the students. Many of the themes explored in the movie are important topics that the western world is grappling with as a whole, such as multiculturalism, the impact of false accusations and the divide between generations with a sprinkling of the culture wars thrown in. It helps that the central character is a young, still idealistic teacher who is clearly acting with the best of intentions, even as those good intentions are the largest factor in kicking off the drama that permeates throughout ‘The Teachers’ Lounge’.

I thought ‘The Teachers’ Lounge’ was a smart and insightful film with a lot of prescient things to say about the societies we live in today, and the problems therein. It is well acted, particularly by Leonie Benesch, and the approach to the narrative makes this play out more like a thriller than an arty drama which is to the movie’s benefit.

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: İlker Çatak

Starring: Leonie Benesch, Michael Klammer, Rafael Stachowiak, Anne-Kathrin Gummich and Eva Löbau

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt26612950/