After premiering in Toronto in 2025 and sitting on the shelf for over a year, Jonathan Etzler’s dark comedy Bad Apples has arrived in UK cinemas with very little hype. As such, the school-set satire is something of a hidden gem – especially surprising given it contains another impressive central performance from Saoirse Ronan.
Ronan stars as Maria, a West Country primary school teacher whose class is routinely disrupted by young tearaway Danny (Eddie Waller). As the title implies, he’s the bad apple spoiling the bunch, and his behaviour is increasingly weighing on Maria’s ability to teach and, in turn, threatening to derail her career. The situation reaches breaking point when one of Danny’s violent outbursts leads to studious teacher’s pet Pauline (Nia Brown) falling down the school stairs, badly breaking her arm.
At this point, the plot takes the first of its many outrageous turns, ultimately leading to Danny’s disappearance. Though the direction the narrative takes is obviously over the top, its satirical bent nonetheless poses some fascinating moral questions as Maria and her class begin to excel without their rotten apple. The characters don’t want to admit the uncomfortable truth that everything is better with Danny gone, and that’s something the audience is forced to confront too.
The script – by Jess O’Kane, adapted from Rasmus Lindgren’s novel – neither offers up easy answers nor does it lay the blame at the feet of any one character. Maria’s actions are obviously wrong, but faced with an uncontrollable pupil and a school system unwilling to offer support, she is pushed to the brink. As for Danny, he is difficult but he is ultimately just a child who clearly needs help that the school and his overworked single father aren’t able to provide. The film takes care to flesh out these characters and offer insight into their backgrounds without overly explaining anything.
As the increasingly wild third act develops, another character comes to the fore and provides a very different example of how one rogue student can throw off the whole class. But again, the film is smart and economical in providing enough background to explain their actions, if not excuse them. From there, the satire reaches its most extreme point, culminating in an absurd and outrageous climax – how willing you are to go with the film’s plot machinations here really depends on how tuned in you are to its darkly comedic wavelength.
Etzler also employs some playful visual touches, extending the film’s central metaphor through a recurring motif of apples falling from trees and gradually rotting, used to mark the passage of time. It’s a simple flourish but a neat way of reinforcing the apple imagery running through the film. It is that same playful approach that makes Bad Apples such a darkly entertaining ride. Etzler deftly balances the film’s heavier themes with a rich vein of jet-black humour, finding laughs in the absurdity and awkwardness of its scenarios.
At the centre of all of this – and often holding it together – is Ronan, who, despite a career full of excellent performances, still manages to surprise with her committed turn here. In a rare contemporary-set role, she is brilliant as a warm and caring teacher broken down by her circumstances, and she ably sells Maria’s more extreme actions as the film progresses. Opposite her, newcomer Waller more than holds his own as Danny, giving a powerful performance as a frustrated young boy unable to get a handle on his feelings and unsure how to even talk about them.
Bad Apples may push its premise to increasingly ridiculous extremes, and its wild final act will test just how far audiences are willing to follow it. But beneath the deliciously dark humour is an unexpectedly thoughtful examination of what happens when a struggling child is failed by those around them, and the uncomfortable relief felt by everyone else when that problem just disappears. Anchored by another superb performance from Ronan, it’s a morally thorny and wickedly funny satire whose questions linger longer than its most provocative punchlines.
