Helen Mirren is taken hostage by Katie Holmes and her friends in 1999's Teaching Mrs. Tingle. I'd say this movie made me feel like I'm crazy for not sympathising with the characters it clearly wants me to sympathise with except the 19% Rotten Tomatoes score suggests I'm far from alone. So probably not crazy.
Mirren plays Mrs. Tingle, a mean history teacher, who perhaps relishes giving bad grades too much, though the film isn't entirely clear on that. She gives a C to Holmes' history project, a reproduction of a woman's diary from the Salem witch trials, but it's never made clear whether Holmes deserved the score or not. What is clear is that Tingle discovers an exam stolen from her office in Holmes' bag and, before she can do anything about it, Holmes and her two friends storm Tingle's house, tie her to her bed, and keep her there for days. They feed her and take care of her dog and the movie avoids mentioning how Tingle passes waste. Because in a lighthearted comedy such as this, who thinks of such details?
But it's never terribly lighthearted, despite the score packed with cheery teen rock songs. I found myself wondering what brought Helen Mirren to this project and thought maybe the story seemed like Timon of Athens or Titus Andronicus.
The tonal oddness can likely be blamed on the fact that the film was originally intended to be much darker but had to be altered due to the Columbine Massacre. Originally, Holmes' character was supposed to be much more brutal and villainous. That makes sense. I do kind of like the idea of the film tonally presenting a villain as a heroine but there are too many silly jumps in logic in the film as it is. It could've been something like Starship Troopers if director Kevin Williamson had played his cards right.
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