The Lesson is a film that is similar to other films in the sense that a man is brought in to Train or tutor a child to make them better at something like music, sports, or academics. This isn’t anything new in Hollywood. It’s been going on in films for years. The way the writer Alex Mackieth and the director Alice Troughton decide to tell the story is what makes it original and interesting for me as a viewer.

Liam (Daryl McCormack, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) is a young writer who gets offered a position as a tutor at a nice estate. The home of a writer he admires, JM Sinclair (Richard E Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me). Once he starts to work with the young Bernie (Stephen McMillan, Boiling Point) son of the author, and his wife Helene Sinclair (Julie Delpy,  The Before Trilogy) He starts to realize there is more going on with this family than meets the eye.

The writer MacKieth and the director Houghton keep the audience in suspense regarding the true nature of why this fledgling writer and tutor is really there. He is welcomed in with open arms but soon realizes the couple who hired him have ulterior motives for why they hired him in the first place. Like the viewer, this man has to figure out rather quickly what’s going on and how to maneuver his way through it. We are kept in secret until the very end. 

These types of suspense thrillers can sometimes go awry because of the story or how they are told but in the case of The Lesson, it’s pretty fascinating how the events unfold. The film isn’t that long so it doesn’t drag. It’s set in three parts with a prologue and an epilogue like a book so there is a beginning, middle, and end to the story. Similar to a book that this story is trying to copy in a sense. The way the whole movie unfolds works very well for me.

Part of how this movie works is the cast. The three main characters with the son as a fourth work their magic within the story very nicely. Their performances don’t give away their motivations too early. In some ways, their performance helps the story by creating layers. The story reveals itself through the dialogue. We as a viewer have to pick up on these clues that the characters and dialogue leave behind. Very good acting from this cast.

The Lesson combines an interesting genre with usually good results with a good cast and very good screenplay and direction and gives audiences something a little different than normal. Studios are looking for that different thing to put out in theaters that are counterprogramming to the big blockbusters. Superhero films and animated movies for kids. This is that film. It’s for adults and someone looking for something out of the ordinary.

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen