Teaching Mrs. Tingle

Ace student Leigh Ann Watson is mistakenly caught with some cheating papers by the bitchiest teacher in the West, Mrs. Tingle, and set to lose her scholarship to College. When she and her friends visit the teacher at home in order to explain their side of the story, they end up tying her up, and slowly trying to talk some sense into the hardheaded woman.

It’s not so much that this is a bad movie, than the fact that it sucks. This movie is chock-full of one-dimensional characters, contains no actual humor that I was able to zone in on, zero tension or thrills, plot holes the size of my big ass, lame pop tunes played to mask nothing going on in the movie, and Molly Ringwald, Vivica A. Fox and Lesley Anne Warren tossed away in throwaway roles. I was primed for this film as its interesting premise had me thinking MISERY (8/10) and 9 TO 5, but unfortunately for Williamson, he went nowhere with the bright foundation, making references to THE EXORCIST and DR. ZHIVAGO, which I doubt many in his target market will appreciate. He also forgot about suspense, with all of his characters based on incomprehensible decisions, unbelievable motivations and simply boring us with all of their trite dialogue.

Sure, Katie Holmes is cute, and her co-star, Marisa Coughlan, did a reasonably amusing impression of THE EXORCIST (Worth two points out of my three on ten), but how can we forgive the biggest one-dimensional character in any film, Holmes’ rival in the film, Mrs. Tingle’s complete unprofessionalism being let go by all others around her (Are teachers allowed to behave that way nowadays?) and a transparent romance between Holmes and some long-haired dude, hired to be the poor man’s version of Skeet Ulrich (Who himself is a poor man’s version of Johnny Depp!). All in all, this movie was laughable for me, provided me with no insight into anything, demonstrated Williamson’s genuine lack of directorial skills alongside a juvenile script, and provided Helen Mirren with a great role to chew into, unfortunately forgetting to give her character any believability, humanity or capacity to comprehend. No hip lines, no cheap thrills, just a dull time at the movie theater. If you want to see a funny teenage movie, go see DETROIT ROCK CITY (8/10), and thank my drunken, sorry ass in the morning.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian