THE TEACHER (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

The Teacher, Watermelon Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 10, 2025

The Palestinian characters in The Teacher are united in pain, anger, the need to do something about their situation, and the deep-seated knowledge that nothing they might do here will make much of a tangible difference. This story is set in the West Bank and revolves around a local teacher. He used to be an activist but has now decided that the lives of those around him are more important than any statement he could make or act of protest he could perform.

There is much to admire about Basem (Saleh Bakri), the central figure of writer/director Farah Nabulsi's debut feature, because he has experienced the kind of pain no one should, keeps moving forward with his life, and helps people in need in any way that his principles allow him. The story of Nabulsi's film, based in the everyday struggles and injustices of people living in this place, keeps pushing him toward some kind of action that would go against his beliefs, and it's mostly infuriating that such a good and decent person would be forced into that position in the first place.

Such is the existence of the people in this region and this particular narrative, though. Basem is a man who has dedicated his professional life to teaching local teens English and his personal life to one that is always looking for a chance to help other people. Those opportunities arrive frequently here, such as near the start of the story when two of his students and neighbors have to stand by and watch as their home is demolished.

Those students are brothers Adam (Muhammad Abed Elrahman) and Yacoub (Mahmoud Bakri). The second, elder sibling was recently released from prison following his presence and activities at a protest a couple years prior, and almost immediately after returning home, he witnesses an Israeli soldier arrive with demolition orders and a bill for the family to pay for their destruction of their own house.

Yacoub is furious, of course, and much of Basem's role here is, not playing a kind of peacekeeper, but helping to maintain some level of practical perspective for these teenagers. Yacoub could fight back against the demolition of house, yes, but what good would it do? He would likely end up in prison again, and the house would be destroyed anyway. Everyone who knows Basem also knows what he has gone through in the past few years, which is information involving his now-absent family that Nabulsi's screenplay reveals gradually and with an increasing degree of tragedy. They also trust what he has to say, and the man takes on that responsibility with the full weight of trying to protect others. It's all he has left, really.

The film's focus on this character, played by Bakri with a quiet nobility that seems so ordinary that it becomes quite remarkable, is the source of much of its potency. We understand this man, recognize his dedication to his values, and respect the way he does put others' needs above his own (His own home has a demolition order waiting to be executed, but that means little in the face of a neighbor's strife). When violence and tragedy at the hands of an Israeli settler do strike nearby, Basem struggles with the knowledge that his rational perspective and peaceful words probably won't be enough.

This narrative is essentially split three ways. The first and most fitting for this character and the challenges in front of him is Basem's relationship with Adam, who suddenly finds himself alone, enraged, and unable to think of much of anything beyond the desire for revenge. The teacher keeps preaching patience, urges him to have some hope in a system of justice that is outside of their purview (The group has to go through a military checkpoint just to show up in the court handling the case), and takes the teen under his wing as much as he can.

The course of this story and the film's central theme, in which we see what and how much the student has learned from his mentor, depend on this relationship, so it is slightly disappointing that Nabulsi's screenplay makes those other two story threads just as prominent as it, if not more so. One has to do with an American attorney (played by Stanley Townsend) and his wife (played by Andrea Irvine), who have come to Israel to help with the release of their son, who moved there, joined the military, and was abducted by an unnamed Palestinian group, demanding the release of more than a thousand prisoners. That part eventually ties together with Basem, who knows firsthand about the lawyer's fearful uncertainty but cannot overlook the inhuman math that one life is somehow worth a thousand.

The third section involves Lisa (Imogen Poots), a British citizen who has come to the West Bank to serve as a counselor at the school. She doesn't fit here, except as a way, perhaps, for an outside audience to have some entryway into the story, which is an unnecessary way of thinking (Is the plight of these other characters somehow not enough of an entry point?), and as a possible love interest for our protagonist, who has more than enough going on for that to be much of a concern.

Even so, The Teacher presents a fascinating character study, as well as an engaging moral dilemma about and interrogation of activism. If one element of the film doesn't work, that doesn't necessarily negate everything else that does.

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