Bad Apples (2025)

The Greater Good, Apparently - Bad Apples review by griggs

Apparently the quickest way to lift a primary school’s results is to stash one of the pupils in the basement. Not sure it’s in the inspection framework.

Saoirse Ronan gets top marks as the teacher who finally snaps. She keeps Maria recognisably human, which the script barely earns. Her slide from panic to “well, it’s working” is the best of it. Danny looks like the pupil from hell until he gets one-to-one attention, and suddenly he can learn. That’s the smartest idea here: the system had no way of dealing with him.

The parents’ meeting is where it grows teeth. Once they realise Danny is locked up, they vote to keep him there because their own children are doing better. It starts to feel like The Cars That Ate Paris with a PTA, and I began hoping it might go full Ozploitation.

Arriving so close to Good Boy doesn’t help. That one also had adults locking up a troublesome young person and convincing themselves it was necessary. The trouble is the film can’t pick a lane. It zig-zags between thriller, black comedy and something brushing up against folk horror without committing to any of them. The warning signs are all there: a locked-away child, neighbours closing ranks, phones put away, dissent quietly dealt with. Still, whenever it gets close to crossing that final line, it politely backs away. A film that locks a child in the cellar should have fewer manners.

It found the bad apple. I wanted it to shake the whole tree.