This surprising film made for Paramount television includes some startling cinematic strokes and a phenomenal performance by Amanda Donohoe. She plays not just a good teacher but a great one. Capable to inspire her students injecting in their souls a sense of being. Discovering that her husband is cheating on her with one of her students, something inside her snaps. She kills her husband and his lover, burns the house down and disappears. We find her some time later in another school becoming a substitute teacher with a brand new identity. That's all I'm going to say, those are the first few minutes of the movie. Her new identity is not going to cover completely her self loathing. Amanda Donohoe never look so beautiful, so strong or so vulnerable. We are aware of her internal struggle between the goodness that she always nurtured and the evil that made a home inside her. The film has extraordinary moment of lyrical beauty. Some extraordinary faces and sequences filled with a strange, uncomfortable tension. Some other moments seem shot by someone else. Stiff and unconvincing. But what's good is really terrific and makes the film a worthy case for re-evaluation/ 8 out of 10
Review of The Substitute
