The Kindergarten Teacher

Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid's ominously low-key drama centers on the mounting fixation that kindergarten teacher Nira (Sarit Larry) develops for one special pupil, a withdrawn, sensitive five-year-old boy named Yoav (Avi Shnaidman), the son of a fiery published writer. Quiet and sensitive after his parents' ugly divorce, Yoav seems to be a budding literary prodigy himself, verbally composing poems and ballads of love and loss that suggest maturity beyond his years—pieces that Nira obsessively tries to record and promote to other apathetic adults. She believes Yoav to be a Mozart-level genius who is going to waste in a decadent society, and she fatefully crosses personal and professional boundaries to get closer to his inscrutable creative soul. Although sometimes slow-moving, this highly-acclaimed film packs a wallop at the end. Highly recommended. (C. Cassady)