Saoirse Ronan shines as Maria, an elementary school teacher pushed too far in Jonatan Etzler’s darkly funny thriller, Bad Apples.

If you’ve read the tagline for the film, do yourself a favour and don’t read anything else about it. Go in with the knowledge that Maria is working to keep her class engaged. She has an overly attentive and needy student in Pauline (Nia Brown) and a disruptive, foul-mouthed and incredibly violent student named Danny (Eddie Waller).

When Danny is injured and goes missing, everything seems to get better for almost everyone, except Danny’s father, Josh (Robert Emms). Maria makes bad decisions aplenty, and it lead to some outrageously funny, blatantly dark, and occasionally touching moments.

Etzler’s film has bite, and neither he nor the subject matter backs down. In fact, it gets pushed to the limit, and the audience willingly follows as a variety of themes are explored. Front and center is the way society works, and how quickly we can shift some of our morals and beliefs for our own benefit.

There is also a very sharp look not only at parenting, but at teaching, and the children that are the intersection point of that Venn diagram.

Both Brown and Waller have moments of pure gold, and go head to head with Ronan in some brazen and funny scenes. Brown has this hint of a faint smile that surfaces at the most wicked of moments.

There is violence here, and while Waller portrays Danny as hurt and broken, despite his outbursts, we are only given glimpses of why he is the way he is. But I think this is more about the teachers that have the biggest and most profound impact on our lives, good or bad.

Ronan’s Maria is definitely one of those.

If you don’t have a dark sense of humour, you may not be ready for where this one goes, but I’ll tell you this. My audience at TIFF loved it!

If you have the chance to see this one at the Festival, do check it out. It’s so good.

It screens Sunday at 9:45pm at the Lightbox, Monday the 8th at Scotiabank (3:15pm), Saturday the 13th at Scotia (10pm), and Sunday at Scotia (6:45pm). Get tickets now!