Mrs. Hyde (2017) is a weird French film, by Serge Bozon, which stars Isabelle Huppert as a bashful and passive schoolteacher persecuted by her students and disliked by her peers. Almost none of the teenagers in her physics class care about learning, albeit the one who gives her the most trouble—the disabled Arab boy, Malik (Adda Senani)—actually shows promise. Then, after she is struck by lightning, the schoolteacher, Mrs. Gequil, gains new energy and a strange measure of control over her students, Malik most of all. Soon, however, the magic ends, with Mrs. Gequil unable to keep herself from being preternaturally destructive. The film is a pessimistic dark comedy about European schools. Indeed, while it seems to expose a present-day culture of insults and contempt, it is subtly saying that traditional French society is on its way out and is taking French public education with it.

Yes, certain individuals will always show promise, and more, but mass learning is dead. Moreover, the character of a teacher is so vital to any success a school enjoys that it must not be broken down or subverted. But this is what happens in a metaphorical, outre way in Bozon’s Nutty Professor-like picture, with Huppert pulling it off like the great actress she is.

(In French with English subtitles. Currently available on Amazon Prime.)

Mrs. Hyde (2017) is a weird French film, by Serge Bozon, which stars Isabelle Huppert as a bashful and passive schoolteacher persecuted by her students and disliked by her peers. Almost none of the teenagers in her physics class care about learning, albeit the one who gives her the most trouble—the disabled Arab boy, Malik (Adda Senani)—actually shows promise. Then, after she is struck by lightning, the schoolteacher, Mrs. Gequil, gains new energy and a strange measure of control over her students, Malik most of all. Soon, however, the magic ends, with Mrs. Gequil unable to keep herself from being preternaturally destructive. The film is a pessimistic dark comedy about European schools. Indeed, while it seems to expose a present-day culture of insults and contempt, it is subtly saying that traditional French society is on its way out and is taking French public education with it.

Yes, certain individuals will always show promise, and more, but mass learning is dead. Moreover, the character of a teacher is so vital to any success a school enjoys that it must not be broken down or subverted. But this is what happens in a metaphorical, outre way in Bozon’s Nutty Professor-like picture, with Huppert pulling it off like the great actress she is.

(In French with English subtitles. Currently available on Amazon Prime.)

Today’s puritan liberalism would probably say, “Don’t make a movie about a black policeman who is a corrupt brute,” but that is what Antoine Fuqua‘s Training Day, from 2001 (a different time), is. And that it is detached from such philistine orthodoxy makes the film that much more respectable. Denzel Washington is electric and never false as the rule-breaking Officer Alonzo, who treats the rookie cop he is “training” (Ethan Hawke) like excrement. Puritan liberalism would also say, “Don’t require Eva Mendes to purvey, however briefly, full-frontal nakedness (especially since she’s a woman of color),” but TD does require it.

It’s too bad the film is a far less realistic police thriller than something like The French Connection. For example, after Alonzo beats Hawke’s rookie to a pulp because Hawke tries to arrest him, the rookie has enough remaining strength to throw himself on the hood of Alonzo’s moving car. Ludicrous. Still, wildly improbable as the movie is, one can have a raw good time with it. It’s a harshly masculine eye-opener, urban with an appealing Los Angeles setting. (Appealing to me, anyway.) Needing, yes, a more mature script, Training Day is nevertheless pretty thrilling.

Today’s puritan liberalism would probably say, “Don’t make a movie about a black policeman who is a corrupt brute,” but that is what Antoine Fuqua‘s Training Day, from 2001 (a different time), is. And that it is detached from such philistine orthodoxy makes the film that much more respectable. Denzel Washington is electric and never false as the rule-breaking Officer Alonzo, who treats the rookie cop he is “training” (Ethan Hawke) like excrement. Puritan liberalism would also say, “Don’t require Eva Mendes to purvey, however briefly, full-frontal nakedness (especially since she’s a woman of color),” but TD does require it.

It’s too bad the film is a far less realistic police thriller than something like The French Connection. For example, after Alonzo beats Hawke’s rookie to a pulp because Hawke tries to arrest him, the rookie has enough remaining strength to throw himself on the hood of Alonzo’s moving car. Ludicrous. Still, wildly improbable as the movie is, one can have a raw good time with it. It’s a harshly masculine eye-opener, urban with an appealing Los Angeles setting. (Appealing to me, anyway.) Needing, yes, a more mature script, Training Day is nevertheless pretty thrilling.

The cynosure of temporary insanity as a legal defense captured the American imagination in years past, and not surprisingly it showed up in 1959’s Anatomy of a Murder, the Otto Preminger film starring James Stewart.  Nowadays it would be more compelling without this cynosure, but as it is, the picture is still gripping and intelligent.  Or, to be honest, it becomes gripping once the technical awkwardness, evinced by Duke Ellington’s flashy and incongruous music, eases up.

Adapted from a novel, the film revolves around an attorney’s defense of an army officer (Ben Gazzara) charged with the murder of a bartender.  The bartender allegedly raped the officer’s wife (Lee Remick), an unhappily married party girl.  A trial proceeds apace and allows George C. Scott to give a smart, riveting performance as a prosecutor.  Fans of courtroom drama will love Anatomy of a Murder, an imperfect movie, sure, but one at least (from the Fifties!) that was made for adults.

Cover of Anatomy of a Murder