The Teachers' Lounge
Directed by İlker Çatak
Written by İlker Çatak & Johannes Duncker
Starring Leonie Benesch, Anne-kathrin Gummich and Michael Klammer
Rated PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour 34 minutes
In theatres: December 25

by Stacey Osbeck, Staff Writer

The German-language film The Teachers’ Lounge opens in a secondary school with faculty grilling students about something of which we remain in the dark. While the teachers’ wording makes clear they don’t want to cross a line with the children, that it’s their choice to speak, they have no problem dancing all along the fringes of said line. A tad too much leading in the conversation brings Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch), a strawberry blonde teacher, to break rank with her colleagues and advocate for her students.

A thief, or thieves, walks among them at the school. The staff reaches a breaking point as the sheer brazenness of the stealing has become rampant. An air of mistrust and unease hangs heavy. Carla’s had enough and devises a simple plan. She leaves her wallet and jacket behind in the teachers’ lounge, a place of trust where only adult staff members can enter, and sets up her laptop to capture a secret recording. When she returns money is missing. She shares the video with the principal, Bettina Böhm (Anne-Kathrin Gummich). It shows significant, yet not ironclad, evidence of the culprit’s identity.

Some things warrant decisive action. Others call for a ‘let’s keep an eye on this but for now it stays under wraps.’ Here the wrong call is made. Once this young teacher gives her superior the information it’s hers to do with as she sees fit. However, the consequences fall on Carla. This sets a series of events in rapid motion like a snowflake drifting down a mountain until it's suddenly rolled into an ice boulder careening downhill.

In some lesser thrillers scenes are squandered, later forcing a plot point to lurch the story forward in compensation. This film utilizes extreme economy in storytelling. No beat is wasted. It’s noteworthy too that although the interrogation and veiled mystery in the beginning set the tone as a thriller, it’s really workplace drama that carries the rest of the film. Think of what propels most thrillers. Can they track down the murderer before he kills again? Will the ransom be delivered and the kidnapped diplomat be found before it’s too late? Can we get the old gang back together for one last heist? As gripping as these scenarios are, they probably won’t come up in our lives. But going to the boss or HR with information and your world then crashing down around you because of their mishandling it? Having your social standing turn shaky and your identity at work get gut punched? These fears cut close to the bone and become the secret sauce that keeps this film so riveting. Add the fact that Carla’s workplace is a school: power dynamics, a criminal among them, colleagues maintaining a united front with parents and the press, and kids—who are always wild cards.

The TV show The Office got big laughs because it was rooted in real life. The Teachers' Lounge becomes the flip side of that, keeping us at the edge of our seats as Carla maneuvers the best outcome she can. Don’t miss this one. The Teachers' Lounge is fully engrossing and one of the best films of the year.