There's something refreshing about an unabashedly dark, vulgar comedy that has no interest in imparting any pearls of wisdom or teaching any life lessons. Bad Teacher is one of those movies for about 80% of it's crude journey, ripping to shreds it's cinematic bretheren like Stand and Deliver
and Lean on Me
. It's when skewering those memorable films by presenting us with the least nurturing teacher of all time that the film truly excels, presenting Cameron Diaz with the freshest performance she's given in years.If teachers have an equivalent to "bedside manner", Elizabeth Halsey(Diaz) is completely devoid of it. How she worked her way up to being a middle school teacher is anyone's guess, but it's clearly not in her long range plans. She's a gold digger of the highest order, forcing her wealthy fiance to leave her high and dry. As a teacher she's completely inept, pounding liquor in front her students; dispensing irresponsibile, hurtful advice at every turn; and her lesson plan consists of showing movies every day. She barely tolerates her co-workers, especially Amy Squirrel(Lucy Punch), who kindof reminds me of a grown up Tracy Flick. Things start looking up when Scott(Justin Timberlake), a perky and wholesome substitute teacher hits town. Sure the guy looks like a flaky momma's boy, but his family's loaded, and that's all that matters. He's got his eye on Amy, though, which sends the two enemies into a catfight the public school system has never seen.
Bad Teacher is basically the spiritual step sister of Bad Santa, and both films had similar obstacles to overcome. It's not easy making people care about a film where the protagonist is so hateful, so what the script must do is look for likable moments in the tiniest of moments. A smile here, a misguided attempt to do good there. Gene Stupinsky and Lee Eisenberg's script pulls this off for the most part, but I think they succeed even more in maximizing Jason Segel as an irreverent gym teacher looking to score with Elizabeth. Segel isn't given much to do but smirk, but it works. Lucy Punch and Justin Timberlake are two people who simply can't not be funny. He's best when the scenes are potentially the most embarrassing. It's like it drives him on to cut loose even more.
The stand out is Diaz, who has been in something of a slump the last few years. She has such a great gift for comedy that's been stifled for far too long. Such a bubbly, lively talent, her best performances come when she can just kick back and have a good time. I think she's much more effective at something like this than My Sister's Keeper
. Even at a swift 90 minutes, the premise loses steam pretty fast, and the film basically becomes a bunch of little sitcom bits. Most work, but the ones that don't fail really hard. Most of the duds involve one of the nerdier kids in class and his attempts to win over the popular, shallow chick. If you guessed that story is meant to parallel Elizabeth's superficiality, then you just earned yourself a gold star.
It's impossible not to compare Bad Teacher to some of the other R-rated comedies we've seen this year. While it might not have the consistency or the rapid fire jokes of those films, Cameron Diaz and the rest of the cast are enjoyable enough to earn a passing grade.
