You can tell Elizabeth Halsey is a bad teacher just by looking at her. She shows up at school in skintight black pants and shirt, heavy kohl eyeliner and red lipstick. She drives away at the end of the day in a car blasting Judas Priest. But she takes her bad behavior one further: She doesn’t bother to teach her kids a thing. Ignore the absurdity of a woman allowed to teach middle school children dressed like a Cosmo girl without the cleavage. (Elizabeth doesn’t have any — the plot partly revolves around her quest to squirrel away enough money to get a boob job.) This isn’t a kitchen-sink drama about the trials and tribulations of teachers and students. “Bad Teacher” is, however, almost certain to be the funniest film of the year.
Cameron Diaz — in some of her best work yet — is the educator of the title, though I use that word loosely. As “Bad Teacher” opens, Elizabeth is ready to retire. She’s landed a rich fiance and is looking forward to spending her days looking beautiful and shopping for things that make her look even more beautiful. But the man — or, more likely, his mother — has figured out that Elizabeth is a gold-digger and cuts her off. So Elizabeth is back in September, again part of the JAMS — John Adams Middle School — family.
| On screen |
| ‘Bad Teacher’ |
| 4.5 out of 5 stars |
| Stars: Cameron Diaz, Lucy Punch, Jason Segel, Justin Timberlake |
| Directors: Jake Kasdan |
| Rated: R for sexual content, nudity, language and some drug use |
| Running time: 92 minutes |
The fact that the principal (John Michael Higgins) and teacher Lynn Davies (“The Office’s” Phyllis Smith, great as usual) refer to the school as JAMS is enough to establish the atmosphere. The usually hungover Elizabeth perks up, though, when new teacher Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) arrives. She can tell simply from a glance at his watch that he’s rich. And once she’s got those fake breasts, he’s certain to be hers. But Elizabeth wasn’t counting on Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch) to steal him away. Amy, after all, is an annoyingly effervescent redhead. The bad teacher keeps her eye on the goal, though, even as the much more intriguing gym teacher (Jason Segal) keeps his eye on her.
You’ll have to take my word that “Bad Teacher” is a laugh-out-loud film from start to finish: We can’t print any of the jokes in the newspaper. This isn’t a film that’s taken the formula of the R-rated comedy and just repeated it, though. There’s something very fresh about the film directed by Jake Kasdan, who made one of the most underrated films of the 1990s, “Zero Effect.”
The cast is pitch-perfect. It’s unclear about whether Timberlake, the guy who brought sexy back, managed to act a complete dork who can’t carry a tune without ruining every take with a laugh. Punch was memorable as the hooker in Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” and is just as good here as a woman who can’t even bring herself to use the b-word. Segal is slyly funny, but this is Diaz’s film from start to finish.
You might think that “Bad Teacher” ends with a lesson, perhaps about the value of doing a good job, or about the silliness of superficiality. Not really. Elizabeth does learn something. But the viewer is spared from an eye-rollingly obvious message. “Bad Teacher,” the woman and the film, is just pure pleasure.
