Maggie Gyllenhaal’s status as a cult icon is assured thanks to BDSM romance Secretary and Donnie Darko. But she keeps on working, and here digs deeper than ever before. It’s astonishing that this performance wasn’t acknowledged with an Oscar nod. Genius often goes unrecognised, which is one of the themes of this kaleidoscopic black comedy.
Gyllenhaal is Lisa Spinelli, who works with pre-schoolers on Staten Island. One of her pupils is a precocious Indian boy, Jimmy (Parker Sevak, poised, diffident and squirmy).
On realising Jimmy’s talent for poetry, Lisa starts behaving oddly. She tells the boy to call her on her cell phone when he feels the next poem brewing. At an evening class, she passes off Jimmy’s poems as her own.
Meanwhile, her family, especially genial hubby Grant (Michael Chernus), can do no right. As the couple are about to have sex, Jimmy calls, and Lisa leaves Grant high and dry.
You laugh. And during a fantastically awkward poetry recital you cringe. Then the dread kicks in. Lisa is too sophisticated to view herself as a white saviour (and besides, Jimmy’s father is rich). But she does think the boy needs rescuing. Lisa is a mystery even to herself. She’s equally plausible as a tragic heroine and a pathetic predator.
Writer-director Sara Colangelo repeatedly draws our attention to class and race. New York, with all its cultural divisions, is as important a character as Lisa and Jimmy. Exquisitely non-judgmental, this is one of those little films that restores your faith in indie cinema.
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